A simulation-based method for the optimal building evacuation plan: a study of emergency behavior among older adults

Purpose Poor evacuation performance of older adults can lead to serious injuries and accidental death in indoor emergency situations. Current research primarily focused on adopting different approaches to explore the factors influencing the elderly’s safety during evacuation procedures, while little attention is paid to dynamic analysis of their indoor evacuation plan. Design/methodology/approach This study proposed a simulation-based method integrating individual evacuation behavior models and algorithms for evacuation exit allocation to formulate the optimal evacuation plan for older adults in a residence building. Findings The applicability of the developed method is verified by a case study of the senior apartment under different evacuation scenarios. A discussion is conducted to explore evacuee distribution on evacuation performance, and a method comparison is made to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for evacuation process optimization. The results show that the proposed method in this study performs better in saving evacuation time and decreasing the behavioral risk of occupants under different scenarios. Originality/value The present study can contribute to enriching the literature on the optimization of building evacuation strategies for elderly people using agent-based simulation, with the developed evacuation behavior model for older adults and the novel method for formulating the optimal evacuation plan.