A representation of partial spatial knowledge: a cognitive map approach for evacuation simulations

ABSTRACT

Usually, routing models in evacuation simulations assume that agents have comprehensive and global knowledge about the building's structure. They neglect the fact that pedestrians might possess no or only parts of information about their position relative to final exits and possible routes leading to them. For the sake of a more realistic description of the routing process, we introduce the systematics of using partial spatial knowledge. Particularly, we present an agent-based approach modeling the inaccurate mental representation of pedestrians' spatial knowledge (the cognitive map). In addition, the model considers further principles and constraints of human wayfinding. Furthermore, we present results of a field study which we conducted in an office building. The purpose of this study was to investigate route choices of people in dependency on their familiarity with the building. Our modeling approach is then calibrated using the obtained results. In this context, the distribution of routes which were used by the subjects are compared with results of the model.

Keywords:

• Route choice
• evacuation simulations
• wayfinding
• cognitive map
• partial knowledge representation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The large- or medium-scale environment includes also parts of the surroundings which are not currently accessible by sensory input.

2. Landmark as origin or destination.

3. Landmark as an onroute choice point.

4. Simulated individuals following the rules of the model.

5. These types of memory can be compared to route and survey knowledge.

6. Not including the recognition of internalized objects (landmarks).

7. Landmarks which are in the same room are visible to the agent.

8. The calculation is achieved with the help of the C++ library VisiLibity (Obermeyer and Contributors 2008).

9. Here we use a multiple of 47 (47 subjects) to obtain more data from the simulations and to rule out route usages that result by coincidence.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) contract No. GZ: SE 17894-1 and by the German Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) contract No. 13N13266 (project ORPHEUS).