Understanding the Role of Dynamic Risk Perception during Fire Evacuations Using Agent-Based Modeling

Considering the severe consequences of building fires, evacuation planning is regarded as one of the most important issues in the design and management of facilities. During fires, occupants face significant uncertainty as to the severity of the situation and must continuously interpret new information from various sources (e.g., other occupants and environmental cues). Based on this influx of new information, and in conjunction with the individual's coping capability under duress, the occupant's perceived risk of the fire situation can change during the course of his/her evacuation. Despite the severity of such situations, the role of dynamic risk perception has been overlooked in the literature. Therefore, this research aims to analyze how dynamic risk perception influences evacuation performance through simulation modeling. An agent-based building fire evacuation simulation model and three different scenarios are examined to investigate the following evacuation performance metrics: evacuation rate, response time, and movement time. Our findings showed that after a fire alarm sounded individual perceived risk increased, resulting from observing the behavior of others, thereby initiating expedited evacuation movement. Similarly, increased perceived risk resulting from detecting fire smoke significantly accelerated occupant movement towards the exits. These findings highlight the significant role of dynamic perceived risk on fire evacuation performance. Understanding the importance of perceived risk on evacuation outcomes, facility managers could attempt to manipulate additional information that affects occupant perceived risk during the different stages of fire evacuations to improve evacuation effectiveness and efficiency.