How conflicting information affects occupant behaviors during evacuations from a metro train: a virtual-reality-based investigation

The evacuation behaviors of occupants are significantly affected by the information in the surrounding environment. When information from multiple sources exists, their effect may be consistent or conflicting. The situations with conflicting information are dangerous since they may lead to wrong evacuation decisions and prolong evacuation time. In this paper, a virtual-reality-based experimental study is conducted, to investigate the effect of conflicting information on occupant evacuation behaviors in a metro train, in two different scenarios. In the first scenario, the conflicting information comes from the moving crowd and the static crowd. In the second scenario, the conflicting information comes from the broadcast, the moving crowd and the static crowd. Occupant pre-movement time and evacuation time are derived. The behaviors of direction change and exit choice are analyzed. The results demonstrate that reinforcing the strength of the information is not always helpful to decrease pre-movement time and total evacuation time. It also indicates that when the size of the moving crowd is relatively large, occupants show a strong tendency to follow them, even the directional information is in conflict with that from other sources, for example the broadcast. The results presented in this study can provide useful implications on the management of information during evacuations.