Conception, development, installation and evaluation of a real time evacuation assistant for complex buildings

In this contribution a pedestrian evacuation system for large buildings is presented. The aim of the system is to monitor and forecast pedestrian streams in complex facilities to assist decision makers and security services in case of emergency. Since the last decades the study of pedestrian dynamics has gained more attention due to continuously growing urban population and cities. This growth is accompanied by an increase not only in size but also in frequencies of large-scale events. The increase sets new challenges to architects, urban planners and organizers of such events. The growing interest in large-scale events additionally requires increased security measures and new security concepts that are tailored to the large amount of people. The hereby designed system is capable of performing real time forecasts of pedestrian traffic for the next 15 minutes starting from the current situation. The test venue for the system is a multi-functional arena in Dusseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The emphasis in this contribution is set not only on the development and the deployment of the system but also on the validation of the results during the operational phase. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.