Simulation-based route planning for pedestrian evacuation in metro stations: A case study

This paper develops a systematic simulation-based multi-attribute decision approach to route choice planning, in which uncertainties and dynamics underlying pedestrian behaviors during an evacuation are modeled given the complex interaction between pedestrians and the traffic is taken into account. Three factors, namely the length of evacuation route, time of evacuation process and density of pedestrian flow, are identified to have significant impacts on the efficiency of the evacuation process, especially at peak hours in a metro station. Two route planning strategies, as specified in Scenarios I and II, respectively, are proposed to simulate the pedestrian evacuation performance. Four key performance indicators (KPIs), namely average pedestrian density, average evacuation length, average evacuation time and average evacuation capacity, are put forward to assess the evacuation performance within different route planning strategies. The values of these KPIs on a metro station in the Wuhan metro system, China, are measured and compared in different scenarios. Results indicate that the performance of the evacuation efficiency can be significantly improved when the route planning strategy (that is specified in Scenario II) is implemented during the pedestrian evacuation. The developed approach can provide valuable theoretic and practical insight into a deep understanding of route planning strategies during the pedestrian evacuation, and thus, the improvement of safety and economic objectives can further be achieved in the design or re-design of metro evacuation systems.