Evacuation Modelling of Mixed-Ability Populations in Fire Emergencies

UK statistics have shown that a significant percentage of fatalities in fires have suffered from some kind of disability. In this context 'disability' relates to a person's physical or mental condition that impinges on their ability to react and move promptly in an emergency. Various evacuation modelling techniques are being adopted to study the movement of occupants during emergencies since the exposure of people to fires for experimental purposes is unethical. However, many evacuation models have ignored the effects of disability on escape potential and therefore tend to predict optimal evacuation times. Moreover, whilst providing some valuable insights into certain factors affecting occupant movement, current models are generally presented in isolation and fail to define a general framework for designing solutions to fire safety engineering problems. The purpose of this research programme was to develop a more general methodology for predicting evacuation times of mixed-ability populations. This was made possible through the development and use of a novel concept of evacuation peiformance index (EPI), which is the relative ease of evacuating a disabled person compared to an able-bodied person, founded on a consideration of the effects of disabilities and mobility aids on evacuation times. The author shows how this concept relates three aspects of fire safety, namely, individual characteristics of disabled occupants, the amount of assistance they require, and building design and environmental factors. She contends that the evacuation peifornzance index of a class of individuals is primarily dependent on these three categories. Experimental data to verify the above claim was collected from careflully monitored evacuation drills involving a group of disabled people. Their EPIs were determined along a pre-defined route from which their evacuation times were calculated. Comparisons between predicted times using the EPI concept and measured times from alternative empirical data were seen to be in reasonable agreement. An iterative design procedure is also suggested; one that is capable of predicting worst possible evacuation times by incorporating measures of EPI and escape route dimensions and details. The EPI concept provides fire safety engineering with a logical design philosophy, which is flexible and easily comprehensible. It endeavours to increase understanding of evacuation of disabled people, and provide a simplified mechanism for fire safety design and planning of evacuation procedures

Understanding situational disabilities and situational awareness in disasters

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Self-organized crowd dynamics : research on earthquake emergency response patterns of drill-trained individuals based on GIS and multi-agent systems methodology

Predicting evacuation patterns is useful in emergency management situations such as an earthquake. To find out how pre-trained individuals interact with one another to achieve their own goal to reach the exit as fast as possible firstly, we investigated urban people’s evacuation behavior under earthquake disaster conditions, established crowd response rules in emergencies, and described the drill strategy and exit familiarity quantitatively through a cellular automata model. By setting different exit familiarity ratios, simulation experiments under different strategies were conducted to predict people’s reactions before an emergency. The corresponding simulation results indicated that the evacuees’ training level could affect a multi-exit zone’s evacuation pattern and clearance time. Their exit choice preferences may disrupt the exit options’ balance, leading to congestion in some of the exits. Secondly, due to people’s rejection of long distances, congestion, and unfamiliar exits, some people would hesitant about the evacuation direction during the evacuation process. This hesitation would also significantly reduce the overall evacuation efficiency. Finally, taking a community in Zhuhai City, China, as an example, put forward the best urban evacuation drill strategy. The quantitative relation between exit familiar level and evacuation efficiency was obtained. The final results showed that the optimized evacuation plan could improve evacuation’s overall efficiency through the self-organization effect. These studies may have some impact on predicting crowd behavior during evacuation and designing the evacuation plan

The Evacuation Simulation of Wheelchair Users in a Building Fire: An Initial Dynamic Characterization of Structural Egress Components

People with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups involved in building fires. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, in the United States alone, an estimated 700 home fires involve people with physical disabilities each year while over 1700 involve those with mental health disorders. Despite this, the current body of literature shows few studies focused on the evacuation of disabled people. This is a direct result of past and present social injustice on people with disabilities and has resulted in high injury and death rates during fires. To combat this, enrich the literature, and improve their experiences in the built environment, this thesis marks the inaugural study of an ongoing project that aims to include all forms of disability in building fire research. This is initiated through the identification of four general disability categories involved in evacuation: functional independence, sensory perception, medical health, and social cognition. By far the most abundant category, functional independence (physical disabilities) provides a starting point for future reference. Therefore, this thesis experiment involves the simulation of 1-3 wheelchair users in a building population of 80 occupants. Two iterations of simulations were completed for a low-rise university apartment building using the evacuation software Pathfinder, and the resulting 327 simulations were analyzed for potential structural aids and barriers to the evacuation process. As a byproduct of this research, a dynamic structural ranking system of egress components is proposed for wheelchair users. Overall, the goal of this research is to provide a connection between people with disabilities and engineers and officials in the structural fire field—therefore increasing awareness among the non-disabled community and improving access and egress in the built environment. Additionally, suggestions for structural modifications are provided to improve egressibility of the simulated building. Finally, the limitations and challenges of the research are identified, and plans for future research are provided

Determination of the Critical Time of Fire in the Building and Ensure Successful Evacuation of People

An engineering method was developed for determining the critical time of fire and determining the probability of evacuation of people from zone of fire, which makes it possible, with simplified dependencies, to quickly determine all the necessary factors in the evacuation process of people in case of fire in the building. To explain the use of the developed method, the sequence and example of determining the critical time of fire and determining the probability of evacuation of people from zone of fire for enterprise is considered. It was shown how one could calculate the time of evacuation of people from the premises from the zone of fire. The safety of people is provided when the time of evacuation does not exceed the time of the onset of the critical phase of the development of fire. For this purpose, the period for which the temperature, smoke density, oxygen concentration, hydrogen chloride, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gas reaches extremely dangerous values for a person was calculated. After determining all the necessary quantities, the probability of evacuation of people was analyzed in the absence of firefighting equipment in the building. The parameters determined by this new method are adequate and confirmed by other methods of calculation, in particular, developed by Hulida, Koval and FDS program. The relative error between the specified parameters does not exceed 8...12% (in comparison with other mentioned methods)

Optimizing Stadium Evacuation by Integrating Geo-Computation and Affordance Theory

The purpose of this project was to optimize football stadium evacuation time by integrating geo-computation with affordance theory from perceptual psychology to account for evacuee characteristics: age, gender, physical fitness, alcohol consumption, and prior experience attending football games at The University of Southern Mississippi (USM), evacuating from large, outdoor public places, and with hazard events. According to the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, football stadiums are part of the country’s critical infrastructure warranting special government protection. Evacuation modeling was identified as an important component of game day emergency preparation. Research shows that: (1) the age, gender, and physical fitness of an individual impact his/her locomotion speed; (2) evacuation route choice is influenced by the perception of its safety and effectiveness; and (3) prior evacuation experience affects evacuation decision-making processes. By including these factors, this research, conducted at USM’s M.M. Roberts Stadium, represents the reality of evacuee movement and behaviors that influence stadium evacuation time. A questionnaire-based survey was administered to game attendees prior to a USM home game to gather evacuee attribute data that influenced locomotion speed. This data, plus secondary spatial data, were used in an agent-based model to model individual evacuee movement. The time required for all evacuees to exit the stadium and campus was 165.16 minutes. This time was significantly shorter than evacuation times from the same location using non-location-specific evacuee locomotion speeds, suggesting that use of local data is vital to accurately depicting evacuation time. The findings also indicated that age and gender were the two main factors that impacted locomotion speeds. The main contributions of this study were: (1) optimizing evacuation time by using location-specific locomotion speeds and (2) providing insights into how evacuees’ physical and mental health influence their evacuation decision-making processes. The U.S. government and sports management industry could use these findings to increase game day safety and security. Due to the spatio-temporal nature of evacuation modeling and perceptions of evacuees that impact evacuation time, this research contributed to the fields of geography, computer science, sport management, psychology, and emergency management

Simulating movement devices used in hospital evacuation

In hospitals, the evacuation of those with severe movement impairments can be highly problematic for the patients, for the staff and for other evacuees. It is critical to understand the performance of horizontal and vertical evacuation procedures, including the means by which people with reduced mobility can be assisted during stair descent. Microsimulation modelling provides a useful tool to assess evacuation strategies, given the challenges of preparing and transporting patients in need of on-going care and the unfeasibility of real evacuation drills. However, current simulation models typically focus on the movement of individual agents, not the staff-patient interactions and sizable equipment required to carry out assisted evacuation. To address this, the buildingEXODUS evacuation model has been enhanced to represent moving objects in addition to moving individual agents. This paper describes the modelling theory behind this development, where dedicated data has been applied to enable the explicit specification of evacuation devices, operated by agents (for instance, representing the vertical travel speeds achieved—with averages ranging between 0.6 m/s and 0.84 m/s—when employing different movement devices). Algorithms are presented that calculate the movement of devices along corridors, through doorways and in stairway descent, including a method of geometric decomposition of the available hospital evacuation routes. This new functionality addresses the key evacuation components of repeated patient collection and has numerous applications, both in simulating hospital evacuation and in representing evacuation of other premises that include people with reduced mobility. Examination of the performance of this functionality found it predicated performance within 6% of expectation. Once further testing is completed, the resultant tool can be used to significantly enhance planning and diagnostic capabilities related to the evacuation of hospital and other healthcare facilities

The impact of a change on the size of the smoke compartment in the evacuation of health care facilities

Evacuation in health-care facilities is complex due to the physical impairment of the patients. This kind of evacuation usually requires the assistance of the workforce members. A proposed change of NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, would increase the maximum allowable size of a smoke compartment (a space within the building enclosed by smoke barriers on all sides that restricts the movement of smoke) in health-care occupancies from 2090 m2 to 3700 m2, almost double the size. This study aims to analyse the impact of this change in the required time for evacuating patients during a fire in order to understand the consequences of that potential change. This paper is focused on the area where the patient?s rooms are located. The evacuation scenario is a floor plan comprised of four smoke compartments. To analyse the proposed change, the smoke barriers between two adjacent compartments were removed in a floor plan and three ratios of number of patients per one staff member were considered (4:1, 3:1 and 2:1). A computational methodology was conducted to calibrate the model STEPS for simulating assisted evacuation processes. In addition, Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) was used to simulate the fire and smoke spread in a table and a PC to compare fire and evacuation results The evacuation results show that the change of the smoke compartment size increases the mean evacuation time by 23%; however, the fire results show that the available safe egress time is 16 min for both smaller and large smoke compartment. The ratio of the number of patients per staff member is also a strong factor that increases the evacuation up to 82% when comparing the ratios of 2 patients per staff member and 4 patients per staff member

A Country: A Map in 6 Towns, 35 Roads

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

Emergency Management: A Case Study of Special Needs Populations and Disaster Preparedness

This research study intends to analyze the information and knowledge that is obtained by emergency managers and mitigation plans regarding the special needs population to better assist the resilience of the individuals within that population. This study focuses on whether the emergency managers\u27 understanding of the demands of the special needs population affects the finalized mitigation plans for their respective locations in terms of the action plans developed to assist the special needs population. This study uses a mixed-methods research approach in which quantitative research was conducted utilizing quantitative and conducts a survey, using qualitative research, to participants and examination of mitigation plans that were associated with the study participants. Study analysis shows that emergency managers in local government agree that necessary information regarding the special needs population is obtained and that adequate training is provided to emergency responders regarding the special needs’ populations; however, there is a lack of evidence found in the mitigation plans that supports the emergency managers responses. Evidence suggests that emergency managers have more confidence regarding their knowledge of the special needs population than is referenced in respective mitigation plans