A force-driven model for passenger evacuation in bus fires

A generic evacuation model is developed based on the behavioral characteristics of passengers during bus fires. Inspired by hydrodynamic mechanisms, the proposed particle-based force-driven model is built using force analysis of evacuees and analogs the movement of people as fluid motion. Several modules are developed to characterize evacuees’ preferences for varying exits, aggregated behavior of groups, and effects of driver. The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) methods are applied to solve the proposed model using smoothed kernel functions. Experiments are conducted to calibrate and validate the proposed model based on observed evacuees’ behavioral characteristics, such as evacuation time, evacuation speed under different scenarios in terms of bus capacity, and the interaction between evacuees. The results of the study will contribute to a better understanding of bus evacuation options, improved design of bus vehicles to cope with internal fires, and the development of appropriate policies and regulations for bus passenger evacuation in response to fires. The proposed method can also be readily applied to other related fields with minor modifications. • A force-driven human motion model is proposed. • Heterogeneous effects of different evacuees are considered. • The model is calibrated with real-world experiments.