Exitus: Agent-Based Evacuation Simulation for Individuals with Disabilities in a Densely Populated Sports Arena

2. Literature Review

Evacuation simulation models can be broadly categorized according to the specificity of the human component. From this perspective, three general approaches are evident from the literature, macroscopic, microscopic, and mesoscopic. Macroscopic modeling is characterized as a top-down approach in which collective pedestrian dynamics such as spatial density or average velocity are related to model parameters through a closed-form formula (Lovas, 1994). Microscopic modeling is characterized as a bottom-up approach in which pedestrians are modeled as individual entities; formulae encapsulating spatial transition probabilities are repeatedly applied leading to temporal changes in state or behavior (Burstedde, Klauck, Schadschneider, & Zittartz, 2001). Mesoscopic modeling is a combination of both macro and micro techniques. Though agent movement is individually specified it is still dependent on aggregate flow conditions rather than interactions with other agents (Hoogendoorn & Bovy, 2000).