Experimental Study of Egress Selection Behavior Between Stairs and Elevators During High-Rise Building Evacuation

Ning Ding,Tao Chen,Hui Zhang

doi:10.1007/s10694-019-00822-y

Ning Ding, Tao Chen + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-019-00822-y

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Abstract

How do evacuees behave and what factors influence their egress selection behavior of stairs or an elevator during a high-rise building evacuation? These issues remain unclear given a paucity of research. In this paper, a series of experiments and questionnaires with 45 participants were carried out to examine the effects of non-irritant smoke and participants’ knowledge of evacuation procedures (especially elevator evacuation). After each experiment, participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire. The results of evacuation times for the elevator versus stairs, the proportion of elevator users, elevator wait times, and redirect behaviors are analyzed and discussed. In experiment 1, 26.7% of 45 participants chose the elevator. In experiment 2, non-irritant smoke was released, and the proportion of participants who used the elevator decreased to 24.4% of 45 participants. Before experiment 3, we shared information about the evacuation (i.e., an explanation of evacuation procedures and elevator evacuation experience) with the participants, after which elevator use increased to 40% of 45 participants. As a result, we found that non-irritant smoke and knowledge of evacuations affected evacuees’ behavior; however, the gap between the proportions of participants who reportedly preferred to use the elevator and who actually used the elevator was large. According to the questionnaire, the proportion of participants who wanted to use the elevator was 55.6%. Moreover, elevator overload, physical fatigue, and social bonds were observed in our experiments. In conclusion, several suggestions are given to building designers, and basic data (such as evacuation times and proportion of stairs or elevator use) offer insight for building safety engineers in designing evacuation strategies incorporating stairs and elevators.

Highlights

In a high-rise building evacuation, how will evacuees behave when they have the option of using either stairs or an elevator? In countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and the United States, fire-proof elevators are used duringFire Technology 2019 evacuations according to building codes [1,2,3,4], and the combined use of stairs and elevators can expedite high-rise building evacuations compared to evacuation by stairs alone [5, 6, 41, 42]
Many factors [6, 7, 28] may influence evacuees’ decisions and behaviors, two of which are examined in this paper: (1) non-irritant smoke; and (2) knowledge of evacuation procedures
Questionnaire 0 was used to collect evacuees’ basic information, such as age and gender. This questionnaire was collected a week before the experiments

Summary

Introduction

In a high-rise building evacuation, how will evacuees behave when they have the option of using either stairs or an elevator? In countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and the United States, fire-proof elevators are used duringFire Technology 2019 evacuations according to building codes [1,2,3,4], and the combined use of stairs and elevators can expedite high-rise building evacuations compared to evacuation by stairs alone [5, 6, 41, 42]. In a high-rise building evacuation, how will evacuees behave when they have the option of using either stairs or an elevator? When designing an evacuation strategy including the use of stairs and elevators, evacuees are always assumed to be compliant [5]; it is expected they will wait for an elevator for as long as required. Many factors [6, 7, 28] may influence evacuees’ decisions and behaviors, two of which are examined in this paper (other factors will be tested in our future work): (1) non-irritant smoke; and (2) knowledge of evacuation procedures (e.g., education or explanation, training, and previous elevator evacuation experience). When people are exposed to conditions with non-irritant smoke and low visibility, their psychological response to encountering smoke (e.g. risk perception, elevated motivation/anxiety) may influence their decision-making during evacuations [10, 11].

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