During emergencies such as a fire, earthquake, tsunami, or any other disaster, decisions made within split seconds can be a matter of life or death, where human behaviour is a critical factor in the decisions made during an evacuation. 

In an emergency, people often experience several stages. The first stage would be recognising an emergency, where humans tend to be normalcy biased, believing everything will continue as normal. In the second stage, humans tend to deliberate on what to do next after acknowledging an emergency. In the third stage, people would often showcase the bandwagon effect, when people “follow the crowd” or “go along with the group” in doing or acting in a certain way when they believe others are doing the same. This effect happens because it is often easier than judging and deciding for ourselves. This effect is especially prominent during emergencies, when people are often nervous, anxious and confused; following the crowd would be thoughtless when the person is overwhelmed by the situation (panic). However, this does not help with evacuation. In fact, worsens the problem by causing overcrowding at one exit/entrance and eventually leading to risks of injuries or even loss of life.

In conclusion, human behaviour plays a significant role in our safety during emergencies. Strategists and engineers utilise software modelling to simulate individuals with thinking and traits in designing exit directories — for instance, Pathfinder by Thunderhead and building EXODUS by GUEL. The simulation allows the prediction of individual reactions and improves evacuation plans or routes to facilitate evacuation. Although this method may not be perfect, it definitely increases our safety in crowded and dangerous situations.