Modelling Driver Interdependent Behaviour in Agent-Based Traffic Simulations for Disaster Management

Accurate modelling of driver behaviour in evacuations is vitally important in creating realistic training environments for disaster management. However, few current models have satisfactorily incorporated the variety of factors that affect driver behaviour. In particular, the interdependence of driver behaviours is often seen in real-world evacuations, but is not represented in current state-of-the art traffic simulators. To address this shortcoming, we present an agent-based behaviour model based on the social forces model of crowds. Our model uses utility-based path trees to represent the forces which affect a driver’s decisions. We demonstrate, by using a metric of route similarity, that our model is able to reproduce the real-life evacuation behaviour whereby drivers follow the routes taken by others. The model is compared to the two most commonly used route choice algorithms, that of quickest route and real-time re-routing, on three road networks: an artificial “ladder” network, and those of Lousiana, USA and Southampton, UK. When our route choice forces model is used our measure of route similarity increases by 21%-93%. Furthermore, a qualitative comparison demonstrates that the model can reproduce patterns of behaviour observed in the 2005 evacuation of the New Orleans area during Hurricane Katrina.