Simulating the leadership effect in crowd evacuation based on social force model

In this paper, we study the leadership effect in crowd evacuation by simulation based on modified social force model. Three evacuation strategies are compared. (1) When there is no leader in the neighborhood, the evacuation success rate is no more than 30%. We conducted a comparative analysis of pedestrian movement with and without herd effect behavior, and found that adopting the “herd” evacuation strategy has a slightly better evacuation success rate than each pedestrian alone looking for an exit. (2) When there is a leader nearby, the movement characteristics and evacuation behavior of the crowd under different visual field conditions (0-2.5m) are studied, and the effect of the number of leaders on evacuation effect is analyzed. The larger the number of leaders, the higher the evacuation success rate. However, when the number of leaders is larger than a certain value, the effect of an increase in the number of leaders on evacuation effect is not obvious. (3) The situation where pedestrians follow the leader with a certain probability is studied. It showed that the greater the probability coefficient, the easier it is for the crowd to trust and follow the leader.