Social Influence (SI) plays an important role in tunnel fire evacuation, as seeing other occupants (bystanders) stay passive may both decrease the likelihood and increase the time of occupants’ evacuation decision. In addition exit and route choice of others influences occupants’ travel paths. The present study investigates if and how passive bystanders influence exit and route choice in a virtual reality (VR) tunnel emergency. 40 participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups. All participants were situated on foot in a virtual two-bore uni-directional road tunnel and exposed to a simulated fire emergency (fire and smoke coming from a burning heavy goods vehicle). An emergency exit led to an emergency crossway for pedestrians linking the two bores of the road tunnel. The exit was signposted by a standard European back-lit sign. Standard European Emergency signage was available in the tunnel every 25 m in accordance with German legislation. The burning heavy goods vehicle was situated close to an emergency exit and was blocking the road resulting in a traffic jam. In the Low SI group participants saw a group of three bystanders a few meters away from their starting position. In the High SI group, fifteen bystanders formed several groups between the participants’ starting position and the tunnel’s emergency exit. In both conditions, the bystanders stayed passive, did not move and did not react to the participants. The virtual environment was presented in a five sided CAVE system. Participants could move freely inside the CAVE and navigate through the tunnel using a gamepad. Most participants (30) moved to the emergency exit in the evacuation scenario and there were no group differences regarding neither the frequency nor time participants needed to reach the exit. Travel path analysis revealed that participants in both groups frequently stopped at the first group of bystanders and then went straight to the exit. The travel paths were compared to a previous study which used an identical scenario but did not include any bystanders. Here participants were more likely to move along the side of the tunnel wall, whereas in the present study most participants moved on paths at the middle of the road (where the bystanders were). The results show that tunnel occupants choose appropriate evacuation routes when on foot in a road tunnel emergency. Passive bystanders may increase the ambiguity of the situation and affect the route choice, however, this effect may not increase with the number of bystanders.