Recent developments in building evacuation models for fire emergencies

This study introduces an improved Social Force (SF) model, the CE-SF model, which incorporates context effects (CE) to better mimic evacuees' real exit choice behavior during building evacuations. The efficacy of the CE-SF model was evaluated through a comparative analysis of exit utilities and movement trajectories against those generated by a utility-function-based SF (UF-SF) model and a shortest-path-based SF model. Additionally, we proposed a novel approach for the quantitative comparison of experimental and simulated evacuation trajectories. Our findings indicate that the CESF model excels in accurately modeling exit choices and movement trajectories across different levels of urgency. Notably, simulation results suggest that setting the context-influenced evacuee percentage to 80% minimizes exit choice errors. This validation supports the broader applicability of the CE-SF model in scenarios with multiple exits, enhancing its utility for emergency evacuation planning and safety protocol development.