Evacuation Facility Selection Situations in Whole-Building Evacuation, Actually Implemented in a Super-High-Rise Building - Results of Questionnaire Survey with Evacuees -

Abstract

This paper presents questionnaire survey results with evacuees in actual whole-building evacuation - not in a safety exercise - from a super-high-rise office building. Its purpose is to provide basic data for establishing special considerations in evacuation plans specific to super-high-rise buildings with increasingly long, complex evacuation routes. The building in which wholebuilding evacuation was actually implemented for reasons other than fire has 33 floors above the ground and 3 below, and was built in a local city in Japan. It is used by a single organization. The evacuation was implemented for the whole building, not an orderly evacuation basis, by judgment of the facility manager. Evacuees totaled 2,000. It was announced that elevators and stairs were available for use as evacuation facilities when the facility manager gave orders for evacuation. The stair-use ratio reached 80%, however, suggesting that the employees are recommended to use the stairs for evacuation and they recognize that the stairs are more reliable than the elevator in evacuation. Blocked movement of evacuees was observed, but to a moderate extent, because movement to the stairs ended before the evacuees from the upper stairs joined those from the lower floors, and the building has many stairs. In contrast, 60% of those who used elevators consider that the evacuation would be completed faster, indicating their expectations for shortened evacuation periods. Some cited physical and health reasons for evacuation by elevator. Use of elevators should be investigated for weaker evacuees.