Dominique Andrieu

How evacuation maps work: comparison of stakeholders’ visual strategies

ABSTRACT In the event of a major flood, many stakeholders implement a time-limited evacuation of residents to minimize the impact on the population. In this situation, the map is an important tool to facilitate decision-making and displacement of people. Many stakeholders have their own missions and questions but have also different experiences that influence how they read a map. In order to produce the most effective maps, it is important to understand how they read the maps and what can complicate their use. From the analysis of fixations and reading strategies, we determine (1) whether the different categories of stakeholders involved in the evacuation have specific characteristics in their map reading and (2) what components of evacuation maps can obstruct the map reading.