A subway flood evacuation model incorporating rescue behavior and pedestrian movement decision-making under different flood depth

Abstract An extended floor field model, incorporating rescue behavior and pedestrians' movement decisions based on flood depths, is proposed to study pedestrian evacuation dynamics during subway flooding. Pedestrians' movement decisions are influenced by floodwater depth and can be classified into three stages: self-evacuation, following rescuers, or relocating to carriages to await rescue. The results indicated that evacuation efficiency increases with the number of rescuers, but this effect may plateau or even decline once a certain threshold is reached. When rescuers enter the subway from both sides, rescue effectiveness is more efficient than unilateral entry. However, increasing the number of rescuers can help close this gap. Moreover, the effectiveness of different rescue strategies depends on the flood depth. When the flood depth is below 0.5 m, increasing the number of rescuers proves more effective than reducing their arrival time. Otherwise, reducing the arrival time of rescuers becomes a more critical factor.