Identifying a Suitable Pedestrian Simulation Software—A Case Study on Emergency Evacuation of Classroom

Pedestrian simulation software has been in use for evaluation analysing “what if” scenarios, simulating emergency evacuations besides design of facilities. The main aim of this study is to examine and identify the appropriate pedestrian simulation software for representing the real-world situations. This process has been carried out by comparing the performance of different simulation software such as VISWALK, PEDESTRIAN DYNAMICS, and PATHFINDER. VISWALK works on the principle of social force model whereas PEDESTRIAN DYNAMICS works on social force model with Visual angle method while Path Finder works on multi-agent-based model with continuous modelling approach. Classroom evacuation during 2013 Ya’an earthquake in China (Li et al. in Saf Sci 79:243–253, 2015) is considered as the research problem to evaluate the simulation performances. In addition, calibrated parameter values of VISWALK (Gaddam et al. in Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, 2018) have also been used to check their adoptability to emergency situation in (Li et al. in Saf Sci 79:243–253, 2015). To achieve the desired level of precision, optimum simulation runs were performed using standard normal coefficients. The results show that VISWALK with calibrated parameters is able to represent real condition accurately. However, PATHFINDER and PEDESTRIAN DYNAMICS are user-friendly compared to VISWALK. The study presents the performance of simulation softwares, their merits, and demerits. Finally, it is concluded that irrespective of modelling approach, the calibration and validation of the model parameters for a given condition are essential.