Optimum Evacuation in Public Gathering Places during the Time of Disaster

Urbanization is rapidly increasing all over the world. Past 2 decades in India, many cities have attracted large population. Reasons being the belief of better education, health care, job/business prospects, etc. For meeting the demands of population density, many high-rise structures and large public gathering places are emerging in cities. Places where few thousands of people can meet are quite common in major cities. It is due to this reason, evacuation at the public gathering places has gained a lot of importance.

Though some traditional hand calculation procedures are available for the estimation of evacuation time, we have attempted to simulate the same in more realistic and reliable way by using latest computational techniques. In this paper, we developed a procedure to calculate the optimum evacuation time by taking input parameters like dimensions of the building, number of doors, size of doors, number of people and seating arrangement. This tool will help architect in efficient design of a public gathering place.