This work explores the impact of response time distributions on high-rise building evacuation.
The analysis utilises response times extracted from printed accounts and interviews of evacuees from the
WTC North Tower evacuation of 11 September 2001. Evacuation simulations produced using these
“real” response time distributions are compared with simulations produced using instant and engineering
response time distributions. Results suggest that while typical engineering approximations to the
response time distribution may produce reasonable evacuation times for up to 90% of the building
population, using this approach may underestimate total evacuation times by as much as 61%. These
observations are applicable to situations involving large high-rise buildings in which travel times are
generally expected to be greater than response time
