Abstract

This study examined the evacuation strategies employed in high-rise buildings as well as determined factors influencing decision making in employing evacuation strategies in four selected high-rise buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Through a case study evaluation involving interviews with facility/building managers, walk through observations of the case studies and analyses of evacuation exercise reports, the study found that total evacuation was the most practiced evacuation strategy with occasional phased evacuation at one of the case studies. The study identified reliable emergency response, building characteristics/fire safety features, and evacuation exercise as the most important factors influencing decision making in employing evacuation strategies. Occupant characteristics was found to be the least important factor. The argument is that, efficient emergency response, passive and active fire safety systems, and evacuation exercise routines mean that challenges posed by the characteristics of occupants could be overcome. This paper gives new insights on factors influencing decision making in employing suitable evacuation strategies. This would benefit stakeholders e.g. building owners, facility managers, health and safety managers when drafting business continuity plans.

Highlights

  • The 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Centre brought about a great deal of attention to the safety of high-rise building users

  • This study aims to evaluate emergency evacuation scenarios in selected highrise office buildings in Malaysia with specific focus on identifying evacuation strategies of highrise buildings as well as the factors considered in the decision making for adopting an evacuation strategy

  • Literature review to identify aspects of evacuation strategies employed in high-rise buildings and factors responsible for decision making in the choice of evacuation strategies was followed by a case study evaluation of four (4) selected case studies in Kuala Lumpur

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Summary

Introduction

The 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Centre brought about a great deal of attention to the safety of high-rise building users. Such focus continues to raise questions regarding evacuation scenarios for emergency situations in high-rise buildings (Ariff, 2003; Ronchi and Nilsson, 2013) from low-cost housings (Akashah et al, 2017; Nizam Husin et al, 2018) to offices (Lin et al, 2010; Proulx and Bénichou, 2010). This research will benefit responsible persons such as asset owners, facilities managers, health and safety managers and emergency response teams to develop, re-assess or improve their emergency response plan and evacuation strategy

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