title: Information use by humans during dynamic route choice in virtual crowd evacuations.
abstract: We conducted a computer-based experiment with over 450 human participants and used a Bayesian model selection approach to explore dynamic exit route choice mechanisms of individuals in simulated crowd evacuations. In contrast to previous work, we explicitly explore the use of time-dependent and time-independent information in decision-making. Our findings suggest that participants tended to base their exit choices on time-dependent information, such as differences in queue lengths and queue speeds at exits rather than on time-independent information, such as differences in exit widths or exit route length. We found weak support for similar decision-making mechanisms under a stress-inducing experimental treatment. However, under this treatment participants were less able or willing to adjust their original exit choice in the course of the evacuation. Our experiment is not a direct test of behaviour in real evacuations, but it does highlight the role different types of information and stress play in real human decision-making in a virtual environment. Our findings may be useful in identifying topics for future study on real human crowd movements or for developing more realistic agent-based simulations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences , University of Essex , Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK ; Department of Engineering Mathematics , University of Bristol , Bristol BS8 1UB, UK.
authors.forename: Nikolai W F
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Bode
authors.affiliation: Jülich Supercomputing Centre , Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH , 52428 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Armel U
authors.initials: AU
authors.lastname: Kemloh Wagoum
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences , University of Essex , Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
authors.forename: Edward A
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5124-3334
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Codling
keywords: Bayesian model selection; crowd evacuations; decision-making; route choice; virtual environment