Abstract: The family group movement is widespread in all kinds ofpublic places, and the emergency evacuation in buildings also includes family groups. The family group is taken as the research ob⁃ject, and the observation research was carried out in a shopping mall to get the movement characteristics. It is found that the speed of the crowd is mostly concentrated in the range of 0.8~1.2 m/s with an average value about 1.0 m/s, and the family group is more inclined to keep in the range of 0.7~1.1 m. The distance between children and adjacent adults is mostly smaller than the average distance between the group members. According to the observed data, Pathfinder software was used to simulate the evacuation in a supermarket. The results showed that the evacuation time of the corrected personnel speed is longer than the simulation result of the software default speed, and the larger the group, the longer theevacuation time of the crowd. By comparing the evacuation processes under scenarios with different exit, it is found that the entrance normally used by supermarkets plays a stronger role in emergency evacuation.

Key words: family group, emergency evacuation, experimental observation, Pathfinder, simulation study