Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering

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The Effects of Human Behavior Simulation on

Architecture Major Students′ Fire Egress Planning

Seung Wan Hong & Yun Gil Lee

To cite this article: Seung Wan Hong & Yun Gil Lee (2018) The Effects of Human Behavior
Simulation on Architecture Major Students′ Fire Egress Planning, Journal of Asian Architecture and
Building Engineering, 17:1, 125-132, DOI: 10.3130/jaabe.17.125

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3130/jaabe.17.125

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Published online: 24 Oct 2018.

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 The Effects of Human Behavior Simulation on Architecture Major Students' Fire Egress
Planning

Seung Wan Hong1 and Yun Gil Lee*2

1
Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Inha University, Republic of Korea
2
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Hoseo University, Republic of Korea

Abstract
This study examines the previously unknown relationship between using human behavior simulation,
equipped autonomous, intelligent Virtual-Users, and students' self-experimentation performance in fire egress
planning. The research method involved 70 students in authentic design courses who proposed floor plans for
office buildings before and after simulating evacuee behaviors. They then scored their experiences based on
using the simulation. Statistical analysis of those scores reveals that using human behavior simulation helps
students find unexpected problems, evaluate the validity and functionality of design solutions, conduct the
experimentation process more efficiently, and determine the solutions with relative ease. The main reasons
for these results are posited to be the explicit, analytic, and observable representation of virtual evacuees,
their manipulative parameters, and an integrated system between human behavior simulation and Building
Information Modeling (BIM). The findings of the present study can contribute to developing a rational
computational means for education in fire egress planning.

Keywords: human behavior simulation; building information modeling (bim); fire egress planning; architectural design education; virtual users

1. Introduction of environmental psychology, computer science, and

As high-rise buildings and mega-sized architecture
become ever more common in many built
environments, the importance of fire egress planning
is receiving greater emphasis in architectural design
education. Fire egress planning demands rigorous
and rational analysis of and experimentation on the
relationship between users' evacuation behaviors and
the physical layouts of the proposed buildings, but in
reality, design studio education still relies largely on
abstract assumptions and extrapolation methods like
fire evacuation norms, regulations, and analysis of
previous cases (Frantzich, 1994; Hadjisophocleous,
Benichou, & Tamin, 1998). While the advent of virtual
reality technology allows for the evaluation of direct
experience, setting up that equipment requires funding,
space, and participants, so the method is expensive to
use in empirical architectural design studios (Gwyne et
al., 1999; Kalay, 2004; Sun & de Vries, 2013).
To d e a l m o r e e ff e c t i v e l y w i t h t h e a n a l y s i s
and evaluation methods in fire egress planning,
simulation methods have been proposed in the fields
*Contact Author: Yun Gil Lee, Associate Professor,
Department of Architecture, Hoseo University,
20 Hoseo-ro 79 beon-gil, Baebang-eup, Asan-si,
Chungcheongnam-do, 31499, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-41-540-5784 Fax: +82-41-540-5784
E-mail: yglee@hoseo.edu
( Received April 3, 2017 ; accepted November 14, 2017 )
DOI http://doi.org/10.3130/jaabe.17.125
architecture. The rationale for simulation methods
rests on providing experimental conditions amongst
variables in fire egress (Simon, 1999). Especially
in human behavior simulations, users' actions are
computed and generated in response to the proposed
physical properties of buildings; as a means of
experimentation, this method allows for iteration of
all possible relationships between the properties of
autonomous agents and environmental conditions (Chu,
Parigi, Law, & Latombe, 2014b; Kalay & Irazàbal,
1995). The simulation also provides analytic and
observable representations that describe the complex
dynamics of prospective occupants (Ekholm, 2001;
Hong, Schaumann, & Kalay, 2016). Based on the
characteristics of the specific simulation method,
recent studies have highlighted the potential usability
of human behavior simulation in analyzing and
predicting pedestrian safety and circulation patterns
(Jalalian, Chalup, & Ostwald; 2011), occupant
workloads (Tabak, de Vries, & Dijkstra, 2010), and
social behaviors during fire egress (Chu, Parigi, Law,
& Latombe, 2014a). From the pedagogic viewpoint,
human behavior simulation is an effective method
that facilitates the cyclic design developments of
architecture major students (Hong et al., 2016).
However, previous studies, especially in fire egress
simulation, focused mainly on computational models
of human behaviors (Pan, Han, Dauber, & Law, 2006;
Pelechano & Malkawi, 2008), and data distribution and
structure (Goldstein, Tessier, & Khan, 2011; Simeone,

Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering/January 2018/132 125

Kalay, Schaumann, & Hong, 2013). Still unknown are
the effects of human behavior simulation on students'
problem finding and decision making in fire egress
planning, which the present study investigates. The
remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Section
2 reviews the human behavior simulation methods
applied in fire egress planning, Section 3 elucidates the
research methods of the present study, Section 4 reports
the results of the statistical analysis, and Section 5
interprets the results and offers further discussion.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Planning Methods in Fire Egress Planning
Architectural planning is a cyclic refinement
designed to lead to the desired performances of
physical layouts in different contexts (Rittel, 1971). It
involves analyzing and evaluating the performances of
physical layouts and requires resources and evidence
for appropriate decision making (Goldschmidt, 2014;
Rowe, 1996). In fire egress planning, the analysis of
hypothesized physical layouts is critical to supporting
safe evacuation routes; rigorous decision making using
valid planning methods is thus of central importance,
because those methods impact the ways in which
planners discover unexpected side effects of building
layouts and confirm the tested performances of
solutions (Rittel, 1971).
In authentic fire egress planning, regulation-based
calculation and extrapolation are the most common
methods chosen by architects and planners. Calculation
is based on generalized norms and atomic standards,
while extrapolation stems from deduction using past
experiences and cases. Therefore, both methods are
limited in their utility for any new building layouts
beyond known norms, standards, and past cases
(Kalay, 2004). To overcome the shortcomings of these
traditional methods, several pioneering studies have
highlighted the application of advanced simulation
technology to experimenting with hypothetical
relationships between novel proposed building layouts
and evacuee behaviors (Chu et al., 2014a; 2014b; Pan
et al., 2006; Pelechano & Malkawi, 2008; Xiaoping et
al., 2009). These simulation methods are particularly
useful when the relationships amongst decision
variables are too complex, conflicting, or dangerous
to test in reality. For instance, Sun, and de Vries
(2013) applied a 3D immersive virtual environment
to investigate the relationship between the physical
properties of exit doors (width, height, side of exit
door relative to evacuee's location, angles from view
direction, and orientation in the layout) and exit door
selection behaviors in fire evacuation. However, while
this direct experience simulation method captures
micro-perceptions and subtle behavioral responses
of actual examinees, it is also limited because of the
expense, space, and techniques needed to construct
experimental settings and recruit massive numbers
of human examinees. In that study, the authors also
126 JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018
reported that examinees' responses may differ from
those of actual users due to stress and the quality of the
stimuli employed. As a radical approach to simulate
evacuees' behavior in built environments, Kalay et al.
(1995; 2004) developed the concept of autonomous,
anthropomorphic, rational computer agents, called
VirtualUsers (VUsers). VUsers are equipped with
simulated sensors to make them aware of physical and
social stimuli and can generate probable behavioral
responses according to social and cultural behavioral
patterns. VUsers generate their behaviors according to
a set of goals and rules. The simulation method using
VUsers, known as human behavior simulation, has
been applied to analyzing office workers' activities
in a specific organization and the spatial layout in
which activities take place (Tabak et al., 2010), the
comprehensive use processes of hospitals (Simeone et
al., 2013), and pedestrians' walking routes (Jalalian et
al.; 2011). The potential of this simulation method has
also been highlighted in previous fire egress planning
studies, as detailed below.
2.2 Human Behavior Simulation in Fire Egress
Planning
To simulate massive numbers of evacuees, previous
studies focused on investigating computational models
of human behaviors. For instance, Xiaoping et al.
(2009) introduced and categorized behavioral models to
simulate evacuees from discrete cell-based path findings
to bottom-up interactions between autonomous agents.
The authors noted that recent approaches had adopted
mixed behavioral models to reflect the heterogeneous
behaviors and psychological mechanisms of
evacuees. Pelechano & Malkawi (2008) examined
the applicability of a grid-based pathfinding model,
called cellular automata, for fire egress simulation,
suggesting that the grid-based evacuation model should
be improved to simulate the body-to-body bottlenecks
observed in actual emergency evacuations and the
parameters of evacuees' flow rates, while speeds should
be iterative rather than using pre-defined values.
In addition, from the perspective of the social
behaviors of evacuees, Pan et al. (2006) implemented
an autonomous multi-agent model that simulates
individual agents' locomotion and steering behaviors,
the interactions among individual agents such as body-
to-body competitive behavior, queuing behavior,
herding behavior, and bidirectional crowds. Chu et
al. (2014a; 2014b) developed SAFEgress, a social
agent-based egress simulation model that computes
occupants' intimacy vis-à-vis social groups, social
structures, and social norms.
While previous studies highlighted the improvements
of evacuee behavioral models and parameters, it was
equally important that these studies all support the
decision making of architects and planners. Through
the use of human behavior simulation, they demonstrate
that it is possible for architects and planners to direct
the dynamic and descriptive behaviors of evacuees in
Seung Wan Hong
the 3D virtual environments in which they are placed
to analyze the safety of proposed buildings with regard
to intended evacuee behaviors. However, despite the
advanced computational models of evacuees, the
effects of human behavior simulation on decision
making and self-experimentation among architects and
planners in fire egress planning remain unknown.
Investigating these effects is especially important in
the field of architectural design education. Schools of
architecture have recently emphasized training students
to conduct fire egress planning as a core competence of
professional architects. However, in reality, traditional
methods such as regulation-based calculation and
extrapolation are limited in their exploration of
unexpected phenomena and fluent experimentation
for the students. In addition, from the perspective of
authentic education, direct experience simulation is
also an expensive method that involves recruiting
actual participants and setting up equipment. Therefore,
the use of a human behavior simulation method that
allows students to explore and iterate matches between
the physical properties of buildings and the parameters
of evacuees has been proposed (Hong et al., 2016).
To teach and manage fire safety planning, Wang
et al. (2015) developed a BIM-based analysis and
evaluation system that computes the escape distances
and times required to respond to a given BIM model
and checks the match between fire escape performance
and fire evacuation regulations. The system's camera
walkthrough captures a simulated escape route that
can be used for fire safety education. The authors
found that a 3D representation of the evacuee's view
is useful for perceiving the locations of equipment.
However, in that study, while the implemented system
stems from the direct experience simulation method, it
involved actual human users rather than simulating the
behaviors of complex, massive numbers of evacuees.
From an educational perspective, Hong et al.
(2016) discovered that both analytic experimentation
and observable representation of human behavior
simulation enable students to iterate matches between
goals and potential solutions and the parameters of
VUsers to examine the complete performance of
ultimate solutions under what-if scenarios [Fig.1.].
The authors also stated that observing the detailed
behavioral performance of heterogeneous VUsers
inspires students to discover the unexpected physical
appropriateness and social implications of design
solutions. Ekholm (2001) also noted that representing
occupants' activities in building spaces supports the
functionality analysis of buildings.
Fire egress simulation was also applied to train
occupants of a building in personal fire safety skills.
Chittaro and Ranon (2009) developed a virtual reality
simulation platform that represents serious conditions
in a fire evacuation scenario. The authors simulated the
physical layout of a building, including walls and exits,
and revealed the emergency situations of a building
JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018
to occupants who lived in the building. They tested
this platform in order to reduce critical evaluation
times and captured aggregated patterns of real-world
occupants. Rüppel and Schatz (2011) shared this aim
and also developed a serious human rescue game. They
used BIM and a commercial game engine to represent
smoke and fire, and applied the platform to evaluating
fire evacuation performance at the phase of conceptual
design.
While previous studies have argued for iterating the
physical layouts of buildings to match the parameters
of VUsers, using advancing modeling tools such as
BIM and observing their represented behaviors using
a 3D game engine to support student experimentation
and decision making, they involve qualitative
interpretations, so generalized statistical effects of
the simulation for educational uses have not yet been
proven. In addition, from the technical point of view, a
simulation tool that combines the advantages of BIM,
such as rapid synthesis and modification of building
layouts, and 3D game engines, which represent the
behaviors of VUsers, has not been implemented in the
students' practical, real-world fire egress planning.
Fig.1. The Educational Use of VUsers (Muzychuk, I. et al.)
3. Research Questions
The present study thus aims to investigate the
effects of human behavior simulation on students'
self-evaluation and discovery in fire egress planning.
Specifically, the study answers the following research
questions: (1) When using human behavior simulation,
do students discover more unexpected problems
in alternative solutions to fire egress planning than
without simulation? (2) When using human behavior
simulation, do students have confidence in evaluating
the usability and validity of the results of the fire egress
planning more than they do without the simulation?
Seung Wan Hong 127
(3) When using human behavior simulation, do
students conduct and experiment with processes of fire
egress planning more efficiently than they do without
the simulation? (4) When using human behavior
simulation, do students determine the optimal design
results of fire egress planning more easily than they do
without the simulation?
To investigate these questions, this study adopts a
quantitative research method that compares students'
evaluation and discovery scores as collected in
experiments in which students either use or do not use
the simulation. For comparison, a human behavior
simulation platform is developed and added to a
commercial BIM tool. The platform allows students to
create and modify a building model with the BIM tool
and to populate heterogeneous VUsers into the BIM
model. The following section lists the present study's
methods and procedures in detail.
4. Methods
4.1 Comparative Case Study
A total of 70 students – 32 in fall 2013 and 38 in fall
2014 – participated in a computer-aided architectural
design course called Digital Design Lab. They were
all third-year university students at H University in
South Korea whose major was architecture, a five-year
professional program. All had completed five semesters
of design studios and courses before the course in this
study. The course curriculum was the same in the 2013
and 2014 fall semesters, as was the instructor. The
method of teaching and the process of learning were
also equivalent.
Before simulation SafeBIM simulation
Fig.2. Examples of Fire Egress Planning before and after Using SafeBIM
128 JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018
As the main design project in this course, students
developed an office building with a maximum of 20
stories on the given site of 50 x 70m. In the fire egress
assignment, students were asked to design and develop
one standard floor of that office building. They were
also asked to satisfy a South Korean fire evacuation
law requiring that evacuees' routes of egress would be
less than 50m, as measured from any standing points
on the floor to the planned exits. In one week, the
students used the Autodesk Revit, a commercial BIM
toolkit, to plan and refine the locations, dimensions,
and number of fire exits assumed to be located on a
standard floor of the building. In this process, they
used calculations, relying on the law's stipulations, to
approximate the behavior of evacuees in the proposed
floor layout.
In the following week, the students used a human
behavior simulation platform called SafeBIM that was
integrated into the BIM toolkit to analyze the routes,
distances, and times of evacuees. They then refined
the previous floor layout according to their analyses
(Fig.2.). In order to maintain consistency for this study,
all students in 2013 and 2014 used the same version
of SafeBIM. After completing the fire egress planning
tasks, the students completed the survey questionnaire
presented in Table 1. The questionnaire used a seven-
step Likert scale (0 = not at all, 7 very much), and
asked students to list (1) all problems that they
discovered in the simulation, and (2) the advantages
and disadvantages of the simulation in examining their
fire egress planning proposals. The proposed plans
had to contain the locations, dimensions, and number
After simulation
Seung Wan Hong
Table 1. The Survey Questionnaires
Pairs
Pair 1: Problem finding on fire
exits and evacuee routes
Pair 2: Confidence in evaluating
the usability and validity of fire
exits and evacuee routes
Pair 3: Efficiency in conducting
and experimenting with the
process of fire egress planning
Pair 4: Ease of determining fire
egress planning solutions
Questions
How many problems did you discover regarding the locations, dimensions, and number of
fire exits and evacuee routes in the proposed floor plan before using the human behavior
simulation?
How many problems did you discover regarding the locations, dimensions, and number
of fire exits and evacuee routes in the proposed floor plan after using the human behavior
simulation?
How much confidence did you have in evaluating the usability and validity of the fire exits
and evacuee routes in the proposed floor plan before using the human behavior simulation?
How much confidence did you have in evaluating the usability and validity of the fire exits
and evacuee routes in the proposed floor plan after using the human behavior simulation?
How efficiently did you conduct and experiment with the process of fire egress planning
(locating the exits and walls, evaluating the proposed floor plan) before using the human
behavior simulation?
How efficiently did you conduct and experiment with the process of fire egress planning
(locating the exits and walls, evaluating the proposed floor plan) after using the human
behavior simulation?
How easily did you determine fire egress planning design solutions before using the human
behavior simulation?
How easily did you determine fire egress planning design solutions easily after using the
human behavior simulation?

of fire exits and the evacuees' routes. The collected
qualitative data were used to determine the probable
reasons for the results of the statistical analysis.
In the present study, comparisons before and after
using the simulation platform were conducted in
authentic design courses rather than lab experiments.
The students used the simulation platform to produce
weekly assignments, so they examined the applicability
of the simulation for the given design tasks without
extreme and artificial time limits. The assignment score
based on the results and process records of fire egress
planning also motivated students to concentrate on
the given design tasks. Compared to lab experiments,
the authentic case approach of this study reflects real-
world phenomena; it is also valid in applications to
empirical fire egress planning and pedagogy (Chase,
Ferguson, & Hoey, 2014; Hong et al., 2016).
4.2 SafeBIM
As a way to support convenient use of the simulation
method, the present study added the 3D simulation
engine SafeBIM to a commercial BIM platform.
SafeBIM was developed using Unity 3D, a popular 3D
game engine, as its basis and added to Autodesk Revit
2013 (Fig.3.), so the students could use SafeBIM in
the Revit toolkit. As a first step of execution, SafeBIM
computed the location and dimensional properties
of the BIM objects (walls, exit doors) and generated
a grid-based collision map for VUsers' wayfinding.
Second, students entered the physical characteristics
(genders, heights) and numbers of VUsers either
randomly or manually, and then populated the VUsers
into a collision-computed BIM model. The students
also assigned the locations and number of exit doors.
Finally, when students executed the simulation, the
VUsers evacuated to the exit door nearest their location
(Fig.4.).
SafeBIM is based on the A* algorithm, a grid-
based shortest-path-finding algorithm and bottom-
up interaction between heterogeneous VUsers.
The algorithm enables variations in generating the
shortest paths so that multi-directional crowds can be
represented. These paths are recalculated according to
agents' occupancy of grid-cells; this dynamic re-setup
of paths initiates the steering behavior of agents. The
locomotion and interactive behaviors of an individual
agent can be also represented due to the static machine
behavior in Unity 3D. This script activates one specific
behavioral animation, prepared in a web of animation
data, when an event starts. The grid system in Unity
3D also controls the locational values of agents on
the grid-cells that represent body-to-body competitive
behavior and queuing behavior. While SafeBIM
enables the representation and observation of such
dynamic path-findings, locomotion, and body-to-
body behaviors of agents, collaborative behaviors are
not inherently equipped, so social dynamics such as
yielding or helping cannot be represented.
Fig.3. The SafeBIM Data Structure
5. Results
5.1 Statistical Analysis
Using SPSS 20.0.0 for the analysis, a paired samples
T-test was conducted to compare students' self-
evaluation scores on how many unexpected problems
they discovered in proposed layouts that aimed to
support occupants' fast and safe evacuation both
with and without the simulation. The results indicate
statistically significant scores for using human behavior

JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018 Seung Wan Hong 129

simulation, as the students discovered more unexpected
problems in the use of the simulation tool (M = 3.94,
SD = 1.03) than when the tool was not employed (M =
3.65, SD = 1.08): t(70) = -2.516, p < .05.
The paired samples T-test was also applied to
compare scores on how much confidence the students
had in evaluating the usability and validity of the
fire exits and evacuee routes in the proposed floor
plan, with and without simulation. Analysis of the
results indicated that students were more confident in
evaluating the usability and validity of the fire egress
planning when using the human behavior simulation (M
= 4.65, SD = 0.93) than when they did not use the tool
(M = 4.20, SD = 0.82): t(70) = -3.480, p < .01.
In the comparison of the efficiency in conducting
and experimenting with the processes of fire egress
planning, the T-test results indicated that students
conducted and experimented with the matches between
alternative solutions and evacuees' performances in the
processes of fire egress planning more efficiently with
the simulation tool (M = 4.47, SD = 0.73) than without
the simulation tool (M = 3.88, SD = 0.67): t(70) =
-5.129, p < .01.
Fig.4. The SafeBIM Execution Processes
Table 2. The Results of the Paired Samples T-test on the Four Research Questions
Without SafeBIM(n=70)
Problem finding in fire exits and evacuee routes
Confidence in evaluating the usability and
validity of fire exits and evacuee routes
Efficiency in conducting and experimenting with
the fire egress planning processes
Ease of determining fire egress planning solutions
Fig.5. The Explicit, Observable Representation of SafeBIM
130 JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018
In the comparison of scores regarding how easily
the students determined the design results of fire
egress planning, statistical analysis of the results
indicated that when students used the human behavior
simulation, they determined those solutions more
easily (M = 4.51, SD = 0.82) than when they did not
use the tool (M = 3.85, SD = 0.87): t(70) = -5.548, p <
.01. Table 2. presents the results of statistical analyses
in detail.
5.2 Discussion
To interpret the reasons for these results, this study
also obtained the students' responses to a question
asking what kinds of problems they found most
often using human behavior simulation. Fifty-four
of 70 students answered that they found expected
problems, while 38 listed the unexpected problems.
Fifteen of these 54 answered that they discovered
that the locations of exits caused inefficient and
distant routes of egress, making for inappropriate
evacuation performance. Ten of 54 answered that
the number of exits caused complicated evacuation
routes and bottlenecks, while 8 of 54 found problems
with the widths and lengths of corridors and rooms,
and 5 students reported that the shape and holistic
composition of floor plan layouts were unsuitable
for evacuation. Using human behavior simulation
thus supports students' problem finding in fire egress
planning, specifically with regard to the number and
locations of exits, the dimensions of corridor and
rooms, and the physical layout of floor plans. In an
extension of previous studies, these results can be
attributed to the fact that explicit and observational
representation of evacuees supports students' problem
finding in fire egress planning. In Ekholm's (2001)
theoretical framework, analyzing users' activity in
design solutions, which is a process of problem finding,
M(SD) Mean
p
With SafeBIM(n=70) Difference
3.65 (1.08) 3.94 (1.03) 0.28 0.01
4.20 (0.82) 4.65 (0.93) 0.45 0.00
3.88 (0.67) 4.47 (0.73) 0.58 0.00
3.85 (0.87) 4.51 (0.82) 0.65 0.00
Seung Wan Hong
allows for defining and redefining spatial functions and
building programs. He argued that representing users'
activity facilitates such problem definition and analysis
for architects, and thus may promote the functionality
and versatility of buildings in accommodating different
behaviors among occupants. Hong et al. (2016)
reported that observing social behaviors of VUsers
enables students to discover the functional problems
of design solutions such as accessibility, travel routes,
density, and dimensional appropriateness early in the
process, thus facilitating iterating design goals and
solutions. In both studies, SafeBIM also explicitly
visualized body-to-body bottlenecks, evacuation times,
distances, and routes of evacuees; this observable
representation may help students to discover
unexpected floor plan problems in terms of fast and
safe fire egress (Fig.5.).
The present study also offers possible causes for the
results of the analysis of human behavior simulation's
efficiency in conducting and experimenting with the
processes of fire egress planning. Students were also
able to manipulate the parameters of VUsers explicitly,
so that setting up experimentation variables like the
population, locations, and physical characteristics of
evacuees became objective and observable to examine
evacuees' performance in the given physical layout.
From a technical perspective, SafeBIM provided visual
interfaces to manipulate the parameters of VUsers
without using additional scripts. In the previous study,
Hong et al. (2016) noted that in the use of human
behavior simulation, the scripting workloads obstructed
students' fluent experimentation and iterations. In
the present study, such workloads were lessened;
thus, this easy setup of the parameters of VUsers was
interpreted as another reason for the results. The other
reason stems from the technical element that SafeBIM,
a human behavior simulation platform developed
for this study, was integrated into a commercial
BIM toolkit, and that the students thus used BIM
models directly in order to analyze and evaluate the
performances of VUsers' evacuation without having
to employ complex processes to convert the models.
As a result, conducting an experimental cycle for
solution synthesis, analysis, and evaluation became
time-efficient. In Wang et al.'s study (2015), the BIM
model was also used for fire safety management, and
the authors reported the advantages of an evacuation
analysis system integrated with BIM; the 3D geometric
visualization of the BIM model was effective and
accurate in examining evacuation times, routes, and
locations of maintenance equipment. Finally, the
present study assesses the reasons why students felt
determining fire egress planning solutions was easier
and why they had confidence in evaluating the usability
and validity of the fire exits and evacuee routes when
using the simulation tool. The students reported that
explicit, analytic representation helped their decision
making in elements like evacuee travel routes,
JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018
times, and distances, so they believed that evidence-
based decisions were more reliable in satisfying the
requirements of fire exits than even reasonably well-
informed assumptions. While a few students pointed
out that the pathfinding performances of VUsers should
be improved as much as possible so as to correspond
to real-world evacuee routes, most students agreed that
simulated evidence enabled them to confirm the ways
in which the design solutions were useful and valid in
supporting occupants' fast and safe evacuation.
6. Conclusion
This study has examined the applicability of
human behavior simulation for architecture major
students' fire egress planning and discovered that the
simulation method helps find and analyze unexpected
problems and evaluate the usability and validity of
design solutions in fire egress planning. This study
also confirms that human behavior simulation enables
students to conduct the processes of experimentation
more efficiently and determine solutions more easily.
Using previous research as a foundation, the present
study posits that its findings are rooted in the explicit,
analytic, and observable representation of evacuees,
their manipulative parameters, and an integrated
BIM system that supports the cycles of synthesis,
analysis, and evaluation. The limitations of the present
study, along with suggestions for future research,
are as follows. First, the SafeBIM behavioral model
was based on the A* algorithm, which is a cellular
automata model. Hence, the physical interactions of
evacuees, such as body-to-body competitive behavior
and queuing behavior, were computed and represented
(Pan et al., 2006; Pelechano & Malkawi, 2008), but
social behaviors like yielding were not considered.
This lack of social interactions among VUsers may
be one reason why a few students questioned the
reliability of the simulated results. A future study
should include social parameters of evacuees like
group affiliation and intimacy that are observed in
reality (Chu et al., 2014a). A future study should also
adopt recent advances in the perceptual model of
evacuees, such as wayfinding according to familiarity
with building elements, following visual exit cues and
crowd behaviors that resemble actual social facilitation
(Chu et al., 2014b). In addition, future studies should
investigate the correspondence between the behaviors
of actual human users and VUsers in order to improve
the reliability of simulated results. Adopting direct-
experience simulation is a proven method of collecting
the behaviors of actual human evacuees (Sun & de
Vries, 2013).
Despite these limitations, the present study reveals
the effectiveness and applicability of human behavior
simulation for students' problem finding, decision
making, and analyzing and evaluating empirical fire
egress planning, proving the hypothetical assumptions
of previous simulation studies. The findings of this
Seung Wan Hong 131
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132 JAABE vol.17 no.1 January 2018 Seung Wan Hong