Advancement Through Research
With the increase of the elderly population, the elderly’s security has been an interesting topic in the field of security since the elderly gather together to take part in many society activities in some closed areas (e.g., club), the need for elderly evacuation research is increasing. Based on the features of the elderly’s motion, this paper first presents an extended cellular automata (CA) model to describe the elderly’s evacuation from one closed area, and then designs three evacuation strategies to improve the safety and efficiency of the elderly’s evacuation. Finally, some numerical tests are conducted to validate whether the proposed model can reproduce the elderly’s evacuation process and whether the proposed strategies can enhance the safety and efficiency of the elderly’s evacuation. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed model and the proposed evacuation strategies are reasonable. The results can help the administrators to better understand the elderly’s evacuation process and to reasonably organize the elderly’s evacuation from some closed areas.
The Elderly, Cellular Automata Model, Pedestrian Flow, Evacuation Strategy
