3D Building Evacuation Route Modelling and Visualization

Abstract. The most common building evacuation approach currently applied is to have evacuation routes planned prior to these emergency events. These routes are usually the shortest and most practical path from each building room to the closest exit. The problem with this approach is that it is not adaptive. It is not responsively configurable relative to the type, intensity, or location of the emergency risk. Moreover, it does not provide any information to the affected persons or to the emergency responders while not allowing for the review of simulated hazard scenarios and alternative evacuation routes. In this paper we address two main tasks. The first is the modelling of the spatial risk caused by a hazardous event leading to choosing the optimal evacuation route for a set of options. The second is to generate a 3D visual representation of the model output. A multicriteria decision making (MCDM) approach is used to model the risk aiming at finding the optimal evacuation route. This is achieved by using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) on the criteria describing the different alternative evacuation routes. The best route is then chosen to be the alternative with the least cost. The 3D visual representation of the model displays the building, the surrounding environment, the evacuee’s location, the hazard location, the risk areas and the optimal evacuation pathway to the target safety location. The work has been performed using ESRI’s ArcGIS. Using the developed models, the user can input the location of the hazard and the location of the evacuee. The system then determines the optimum evacuation route and displays it in 3D.