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Quickly Channeling Crowd Population in Emergency: An Emergency Evacuation Command System
Abstract
Evacuation remains one of the main public protection strategies in response to a man-made or natural incident when people are at risk. In most cases when an evacuation is required, it indicates the presence of danger and urgency. By instinct, people affected act to escape from the danger; thus, two typical phenomena often occur during an evacuation: competitive behavior and herding behavior (Festinger, 1954). If people perceive a threat and are trapped at an incident site, they try to get out as soon as possible. Usually, they look for exit signs or evacuation routes that can lead them to a safer place and proceed to the nearest one. For people near the exit or route entrance, moving toward the exit or entering the evacuation route may be the only likely escape choice. Thus, two forms of competitive behavior may exist simultaneously: the effort to pass through the exit (or enter the route) as quickly as possible, and the effort among those at risk to run toward the exits. Such behavior may cause congestion at the exits or entrance points, even to the point that people may crush one another. The India stampede event on January 26, 2005, is just such a tragedy. According to media reports (BBC, 2005; CNN, 2005), a screaming crowd fled down narrow walkways chaotically when fires broke out, causing many people to be crushed and resulting in 250 deaths.
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