Controlled Experiments to Examine Different Exit Designs on Crowd Evacuation Dynamics

This paper examins the impact of different exit designs on the collective movement patterns of the crowd. A series of controlled experiments with 50 participants were performed in a designed chamber. Considering different exit locations (exit at the middle/corner) and obstacle placements (without/with obstacle) under two desired speed categories (normal walking/slow running), eight sets of experiments were conducted with three repetitions. From the trajectory data derived from the recorded video footage, crowd egress features such as escape headway frequency distribution, escape time duration, and relative effectiveness were obtained. Results showed that for corner exits, without obstacle was the most effective scenario. In addition, presence of obstacle increases the egress time, compared to middle exits. Findings of this study are useful resources for crowd researchers to validate their proposed crowd simulation models and for architects to improve exit designs.