Defining static floor field of evacuation model in large exit scenario

Abstract The floor field model has been widely used to study pedestrian movement. But the traditional methods of setting the static floor field would lead to highly insufficient utilization of the exit region when the exit width is very large. In order to solve the problem and to study the utilization of wide exit, in this paper we put forward an idea of “virtual reference point” and propose a new method of building static floor field. A virtual reference point can be regarded as a point sink of the floor field, it has minimum field value. The position of the virtual reference point decides the distribution of static floor field values in the model. We further explore the relationship between the virtual reference point position and the exit width using regression analysis. It seems that a proper position of virtual reference point will make the exit be fully used and get high evacuation efficiency. We then analyze how to lead people to fully utilize the exit by changing the configuration of exit guidance, and give a primary scheme.