A Review of Building Evacuation Models - NIST Virtual Library

Validation studies: Johnson, et al 5 , provides validation for EVACNET+ (a previous version of
EVACNET4) from an unsuspected evacuation from the National Gallery of Victoria involving
1014 people. Gwynne 6 explains the biases in the write-up due to the fact that information which
would not have been known before the evacuation was entered into the model, such as the
information that one exit was not used, the under-use of another exit, etc). Gwynne also notes
that because EVACNET optimizes an evacuation, any overestimation by the model is a large
error. The results are shown below in Table A.2:
Table A.2: Results of validation study for EVACNET+
Exit Evacuation Time (s) EVACNET+ time (s)
A 420 424
B 420 424
C 480 521
D 480 512
Total time 480 521
Special features:
Elevator use – Yes. The inputs required includes the "down" travel time, the "up" travel time,
the time of the first "down" departure, and the elevator capacity. Given this information,
EVACNET4 runs the elevator on the defined schedule for the duration of the evacuation.
Passengers are carried only on "down" trips. This is shown in Figure A.3.
Figure A.3: EVACNET diagram incorporating elevator use
Route choice of the occupants/occupant distribution – Optimal route only
4, p. 66
Limitations: The model’s array sizes can be accustomed to fit needs of building. This simply
requires a larger memory. The text input files are arduous to assemble for a complex building.
A-7