Background and objective The primary goal in emergencies is the complete evacuation of the crowd to save lives, but the behaviors of the crowd, their interactions with the physical environment, and the use of evacuation management strategies can affect its time, particularly in religious places. In this study, we aim to evaluate the impact of the crowd’s social dependencies and fear and the use of a phased evacuation strategy on the duration of emergency crowd evacuation in Bani Hashem Shrine.
Method This is a descriptive-analytical study using the agent-oriented approach and the integrated framework for crowd evaluation and evacuation. The pilgrims to the holy shrine of Bani Hashem on special days, such as Muharram and Arbaeen, constituted the study population. Based on plausible scenarios, crowd evacuation in emergency and non-emergency situations was simulated using Pathfinder software to evaluate the effects of social dependency, fear, and the use of a phased evacuation strategy on the duration of crowd evacuation.
Results To evaluate the effect of social dependency, simulations were conducted in four scenarios, with dependency rates of 5, 10, 15, and 20% of the population. The results showed an increase in the evacuation time by 623, 635, 651, and 675 seconds, respectively. To evaluate the impact of the fear factor, simulations were conducted in four scenarios, with fear rates of 5, 10, 15, and 20% of the population. The results showed that fear increased the evacuation time by 644, 675, 749, and 854 seconds, respectively. To assess the impact of phased evacuation strategy use, the simulation was carried out in three scenarios with evacuation delays of 45, 90, and 135 seconds. The results showed an increase in the evacuation time by 621, 632, and 647 seconds, respectively.
Conclusion The duration of the complete crowd evacuation of the Bani Hashem shrine in normal and non-emergency conditions is 619 seconds. The crowd’s behaviors resulting from social dependencies and fear and the use of a phased evacuation strategy can increase the evacuation duration.