Consideration of Improvement of VR Evacuation Simulator through Behavior Experiment

The purpose of this study is to investigate characteristics of exit choice during evacuation in underground mall fire using virtual reality (VR) escape simulator in cooperation with thirty subjects. Each subject wore a head mounted display (HMD) experienced behavior for evacuation in a virtual underground mall developed in this study. Mobile history etc. of each subject were recorded and a questionnaire survey was conducted at the same time to grasp the reasons that the subjects moved in the virtual space, and the relationships between exit choices and the reasons were organized. The occupant density (high, medium, low) were set and the combinations of four positions and two directions of the subjects at the start of evacuation were done as the experimental conditions. A series of the experiments had shown that 1) there was a potential for using a VR escape simulator for evacuation drill in public facilities such as underground malls, 2) the start position and the direction of each subject and the occupant density had effects on their decision of moving direction and exit choice, and 3) the ratios of their decision were varied based on their conditions. And, we could consider improvement plans of the VR escape simulator.