Agent-Based Animated Simulation of Mass Egress Following an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Attack

Summary

We achieved a new degree of scale and realism in developing agent-based simulation models of mass egress from large facilities, following one or more detonations of improvised explosive devices (IED), to evaluate some proposed ways to facilitate evacuation and reduce casualties. We modeled two venues: a sports stadium and a subway station. Our models offer ease of input and animated realism of output that make them much more suitable than traditional discrete-event models as aids to decision-makers. The development and analysis completed to date, while far from exhaustive, suffice to demonstrate the utility of models such as these for evaluating proposed countermeasures, for indicating policy and technology issues that should be analyzed further, and for response planning.