Impact of Leader-Follower Behavior on Evacuation Performance
An Exploratory Modeling Approach
Jakob Irnich (Student TU Delft)
Natalie van der Wal (TU Delft - System Engineering)
Dorine Duives (TU Delft - Transport and Planning)
Willem Auping (TU Delft - Policy Analysis)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Different leader-follower behaviors may be observed in models, such as group gathering, backtracking, and changing between groups. However, a comparison of these behaviors resulting in possible substantially different estimates of optimal evacuation procedures is lacking. Hence, we developed an agent-based model in combination with exploratory modeling to compare backtracking, group gathering, and followers changing leaders and investigate their influence on the evacuation and response time. The simulation results showed that backtracking and changing of groups increased the evacuation time. Whereby group gathering increase the response time. In addition, the combination of behaviors increases the influence on evacuation and response time. Further research needs to test these results with empirical studies and investigate the impact of other leader-follower behavior. The found insights may be utilized in evacuation research for modeling this behavior and they provide a valuable basis for designing policies in buildings with a high distribution of leader-follower groups.