Two-fluid approach to the emergency movement of pedestrians through a passage

Abstract

Egress times of pedestrians from the narrow and the wide passages are modeled analytically in this study. The pedestrians in this study constitute both faster (like the ones who are healthy) and slower (like the ones who are older, disabled, etc.) pedestrians. The narrow and the wide passages can accommodate single-file and double-file movement of pedestrians, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, we have developed analytical models of egress time considering the characteristics of the passage and the pedestrians mentioned above for the first time. The models developed in this study can be used to plan evacuation through a bottleneck of pedestrians from hospitals and places of mass gathering, among others, during an emergency. A set of evacuation strategy guidelines has been discussed based on the results of the models developed in this study.