An engineering model for the estimation of occupant premovement and or response times and the probability of their occurrence

Abstract

The estimation of the required safe egress time (RSET) has received a great deal of attention in the past two decades from researchers and life safety engineers. The ‘Codes’, however, present occupant premovement or response components of RSET in a form and that is either far too complex or for which there is no comprehensive scientific foundation. A model is required to predict escape times from a number of different settings that reflect different occupancy types. This paper reviews an engineering and scientifically based model that can be related to and evaluated directly by reliable statistics methods. A discussion of the existing available premovement data from research in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States both published and unpublished is used to demonstrate the rationale for this claim. It is then argued that the three main determinants of occupant response or premovement times account for the variability of occupant response and premovement actions and times. An engineering model based on these determinants, incorporating further variables to establish a safety factor, is presented and reviewed as a tool for informed design and as a vehicle for further research. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.