Design guidelines for crowd evacuation in a stadium for controlling evacuee accumulation and sequencing

• Main Authors: Yoshikazu Minegishi, Naohiro Takeichi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2018-10-01
• Series: Japan Architectural Review
• Subjects: accumulation; evacuation design; evacuation guidance; evacuation simulation; stadium
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/2475-8876.12042

Abstract In the design of large‐scale sports facilities, architectural and fire‐service regulations are consulted to secure evacuation safety. However, these regulations define only the number, width, or amount of evacuation facilities, such as the path, exit, and stairs. These regulations not only limit the flexibility of the architectural design, but also not clarify that how evacuees should be secured or controlled under emergency situation. For this circumstance, we propose guidelines for the design and management of crowd evacuation by showing the process of an actual design project for a large‐scale 40 000‐seat stadium using a multi‐agent evacuation simulator. We mainly discuss three situations: (i) evacuation from the spectator stands, (ii) merging and accumulation around stairs, and (iii) evacuation to/on the ground. We clarify that most problems emerge from the accumulation of evacuees and the accumulation sequencing. We hence propose a design method and crowd management policy that avoid generation of a sequence of accumulations and while guiding on where accumulations should be generated.