Serious Game

Evaluating mass population evacuation plans through full-scale exercises is difficult to implement. When they do take place, these scripted exercises are based on a realistic timeline of the hazard dynamics but often idealize population behaviors. This can partly be explained by the lack of reference situations on the territory and the difficulty of realistically involving thousands of people in the exercise. Simulation models can therefore replace these exercises by offering an original perspective on the social dynamics likely to occur during such events. These models allow for the exploration of processes, the challenges, and the issuesinvolved in managing alerts and crises under different geographical configurations, various hazard scenarios, and decision-making in uncertain situations. The ESCAPE-Serious Game project falls into this category of serious games, where user-learners are immersed in the action of a complex situation—namely, the evacuation of populations—and are given the opportunity to practice and gain experience in their own profession or role within an organization.