Virtual cities for real-world crisis management

In this paper, we present the evacuation simulation system that is the combination of a virtual city and a crisis management simulation. The system allows users to become virtual evacuees in an evacuation simulation to learn about crowd behavior. In the experimental use of the system, we found that the synergic effects between a bird's-eye and a first-person views in learning emergency escaping behaviors. Based on this result, we designed a novel communication system that allows a remote leader to guide escaping crowds in an emergency situation. We deployed our prototype in the Kyoto Station.