2022 Volume 14 Issue 1 Pages 43-53
When a crowd tries to escape from a room in life-threatening situations such as fires, the passage through doors becomes crucial in determining the evacuation efficiency. The architectural designs of the room influence to a large extent the evacuation process. In this paper, we investigate the possibility to reduce the evacuation time by proper placements of suitable shaped obstacles. Our simulation results clearly demonstrate that appropriately placing two pillars on both sides of the door is an effective strategy to make the pedestrian flow smooth, hence facilitating the evacuation process.