Tracking Evacuation of Pedestrians during Disasters

In times of natural or man-made disasters, missions such as safe evacuation of people from the disaster areas have critical importance. Considering large areas with limited vehicle use such as theme parks and state fairs, search and rescue of the pedestrians is a major challenge. Moreover, as an effect of disaster, damages to infrastructure may disrupt the use of Internet services. Therefore, alternative communication systems with disaster resilience are necessary for evacuation planning and guidance. In this paper, we develop a method for tracking pedestrians using smart-phones during disasters. In the network model, sensors store and carry messages to a limited number of mobile sinks. We propose physical force based (PF), grid allocation based (GA) and road allocation based (RA) approaches for sink placement and mobility. The proposed approaches are analyzed through extensive network simulations using real theme park maps and a theme park pedestrian mobility model for disaster scenarios.