Avoidance of Traffic Delay for Panicking Crowds Subject to Information Propagation

Abstract

In disaster situations, a panicking people tend to follow other leading people when they must select the next route from alternative routes. In some cases, such tendency may cause traffic congestion in escape routes, and increases the total amount of escape time. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a traffic congestion model and an information propagation model in emergency situations, and consider how to propagate escape route information through panicking crowds in order to avoid traffic congestion. The selection of pairs of “voice alarms” and “escape gates” is an important factor to change the propagation of escape route information. Thus, we evaluate the effect of the selection of pairs by computer simulation using the traffic congestion and information propagation models. Our simulation results indicate that effective pairs can keep the standard deviation of escape time low.