Effects of evacuation assistant's leading behavior on the evacuation efficiency: Information transmission approach

Evacuation assistants are expected to spread the escape route information and lead evacuees toward the exit as quickly as possible. Their leading behavior influences the evacuees' movement directly, which is confirmed to be a decisive factor of the evacuation efficiency. The transmission process of escape information and its function on the evacuees' movement are accurately presented by the proposed extended dynamic communication field model. For evacuation assistants and evacuees, their sensitivity parameter of static floor field (SFF), k_S^L, and k_S^e, are fully discussed. The simulation results indicate that the appropriate k_S^L is associated with the maximum k_S^e of evacuees. The optimal combinations of k_S^L and k_S^e were found to reach the highest evacuation efficiency. There also exists an optimal value for evacuation assistants' information transmission radius.