Evacuees’ Behaviors of Using Elevators during Evacuation based on Experiments

Abstract

In this paper, experiments are carried out to study how evacuees behave and what factors influence their behaviors during evacuation. Two key factors, which may influence evacuees’ behaviors, are tested in our experiments: number of waiting evacuees, and smoke. Furthermore, the shapes of queuing, such as arch and line, will influence the time of evacuees going through elevator doors. Several interesting phenomena are also observed in our experiments. Finally, several suggestions, such as the width of doors and the design of elevator lobbies, are given to building designers on the issues mentioned above.