This book presents an overview of modeling definitions and concepts, theory on human behavior and human performance data, available tools and simulation approaches, model development, and application and validation methods. It considers the data and research efforts needed to develop and incorporate functions for the different parameters into comprehensive escape and evacuation simulations, with a number of examples illustrating different aspects and approaches. After an overview of basic modeling approaches, the book discusses benefits and challenges of current techniques. The representation of evacuees is a central issue, including human behavior and the proper implementation of representational tools. Key topics include the nature and importance of the different parameters involved in ASET and RSET and the interactions between them. A review of the current literature on verification and validation methods is provided, with a set of recommended verification tests and examples of validation tests. The book concludes with future challenges: new scenarios and factors for future model developments, addresses the problem of using deterministic and/or stochastic approaches and proposes, and discusses the use of evacuation models for supporting timely decisions in real-time. Written by international experts, Evacuation Modeling Trends is designed for those involved in safety, from emergency and intervention personnel to students, engineers and researchers.

Large-Scale Evacuation introduces the reader to the steps involved in evacuation modelling for towns and cities, from understanding the hazards that can require large-scale evacuations, through understanding how local officials decide to issue evacuation advisories and households decide whether to comply, to transportation simulation and traffic management strategies. The author team has been recognized internationally for their research and consulting experience in the field of evacuations. Collectively, they have 125 years of experience in evacuation, including more than 140 projects for federal and state agencies. The text explains how to model evacuations that use the road transportation network by combining perspectives from social scientists and transportation engineers, fields that have commonly approached evacuation modelling from distinctly different perspectives. In doing so, it offers a step-by-step guide through the key questions needed to model an evacuation and its impacts to the evacuation route system as well as evacuation management strategies for influencing demand and expanding capacity. The authors also demonstrate how to simulate the resulting traffic and evacuation management strategies that can be used to facilitate evacuee movement and reduce unnecessary demand. Case studies, which identify key points to analyze in an evacuation plan, discuss evacuation termination and re-entry, and highlight challenges that someone developing an evacuation plan or model should expect, are also included. This textbook will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and advanced students.

Intelligent Transportation and Evacuation Planning: A Modeling-Based Approach provides a new paradigm for evacuation planning strategies and techniques. Recently, evacuation planning and modeling have increasingly attracted interest among researchers as well as government officials. This interest stems from the recent catastrophic hurricanes and weather-related events that occurred in the southeastern United States (Hurricane Katrina and Rita). The evacuation methods that were in place before and during the hurricanes did not work well and resulted in thousands of deaths. This book offers insights into the methods and techniques that allow for implementing mathematical-based, simulation-based, and integrated optimization and simulation-based engineering approaches for evacuation planning.

Research on digital reality has been extensive in recent years, covering a wide range of topics and leading to new ways to approach and deal with complex situations. Within the Society 5.0 paradigm, people and machines establish a positive relationship to find solutions for social aspects and problems. This perspective establishes a strong interconnection between physical and virtual space, making the user an active player for better life and society. In these terms, digital systems and virtual and augmented reality technologies enable multi-dimensional scenarios and additional levels of interdisciplinary collaboration to create a highly inclusive communication network and social framework. The Handbook of Research on Implementing Digital Reality and Interactive Technologies to Achieve Society 5.0 provides an overview of methods, processes, and tools adopted to achieve super-smart society needs by exploiting digital reality and interactive technologies. It includes case studies that illustrate applications that place people’s quality of life at the center of the digitalization process, accessing and managing different information and data domains. Covering topics such as cultural heritage, interactive learning, and virtual participation, this major reference work is a comprehensive resource for business executives and managers, IT managers, government officials, community leaders, arts and performance organizers, healthcare administrators and professionals, faculty and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, students of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Multi-disciplinary Trends in Artificial Intelligence, MIWAI 2022, held online on November 17–19, 2022. The 14 full papers and 5 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions.