Agent-Based City Evacuation Simulation

Downtown Iquique, Chile



Map of Iquique showing the evacuation zone, evacuation routes, and population distribution:




Model with interface:




Graphical output:




Model specs:

  • Population: 34000
  • Number of cars: 2000
  • Platform: NetLogo
  • Input data format: GIS shapefiles
  • Two interactive modules: a pedestrian navigation module and a vehicle navigation module
  • Pedestrian walking algorithm: DistBug (reference)
  • Collision avoidance mechanism based on maximum patch density
  • Interaction between pedestrians and vehicles: (1) Pedestrians use sidewalks along the streets and interactions occur at intersections; or (2) Pedestrians use the whole width of streets and interact with vehicles while walking.
  • Vehicle driving algorithm: based on critical safe distance
  • Vehicle pathfinding algorithm: the Floyd-Warshall and the Dijkstra's algorithms
  • Ride sharing: Based on car ownership rates, those residents who own cars drive towards the safe zone carrying a maximum of 4 other residents available in the driver's surrounding. Those pedestrians who are initially on the streets walk towards the safe zone.
  • Building evacuation based on predefined rates and a Gaussian distribution

Reference Paper