Planning of emergency evacuation routes in densely populated urban areas during earthquakes

This study analyzed the planning of emergency evacuation routes in densely populated urban areas after earthquakes using an urban university campus as an example. The available campus refuge places were determined from campus literature and in-person investigations. The analysis then considered the influence of a falling outer building wall onto the evacuation route for various earthquake acceleration rates using the concept of an "evacuation virtual wall". Then, the Pathfinder software was used to develop an optimized evacuation plan for various earthquake acceleration rates, crowd distributions, personal coping behavior characteristics and exit arch phenomena that may occur during the evacuation. Finally, escape and evacuation simulation results are compared to determine the best evacuation plan to improve campus safety management.