Panic evacuation of single pedestrians and couples

Abstract

Understanding the timing requirements for evacuation of people has focused primarily on independent pedestrians rather than pedestrians emotionally connected. However, the main statistical effects observed in crowds, the so-called “faster is slower”, “clever is not always better” and the “low visibility enhancement”, cannot explain the overall behavior of a crowd during an evacuation process when correlated pedestrians due to, for example feelings, are present. Our research addresses this issue and examines the statistical behavior of a mixture of individuals and couples during a (panic) escaping process. We found that the attractive feeling among couples plays an important role in the time delays during the evacuation of a single exit room.