Agent-based Pedestrian Cell Transmission Model for Evacuation

Abstract

Describing dynamics of pedestrian evacuation is a challenging issue. Many related studies have been conducted in both microscopic and macroscopic views. Microscopic approaches focus on detailed movements of individual pedestrians and they are computationally expensive. Macroscopic approaches have less concern in the individuals, but they are lack of flexibility because they treat pedestrians as unthinking elements that cannot choose their destinations or routes. We propose the agent-based pedestrian cell transmission model (A-PCTM) that puts the merits of both microscopic and macroscopic approaches. We modify the original CTM to improve the computational efficiency and embed the concept of agents that make decisions on their destinations and travel directions. The A-PCTM has procedures of adaptive direction-based path finding, and the effect of such procedures is tested by some simulation cases with different geometric settings. The proposed model shows the flexibility in switching the destination and in choosing the travel direction depending on the situation ahead.