Investigating office buildings evacuations using unannounced fire drills: The case study of CERN, Switzerland

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to explore evacuees’ behaviour during an unannounced fire drill using data collected in two office buildings located at CERN, in Switzerland. Overall, a total of 142 pre-evacuation time measurements, 121 evacuee walking speed measurements in staircase configurations, and 336 evacuee walking speed measurements on floor configurations are included in the dataset. These data were compared with the existing evacuation data for office buildings. This comparison revealed that the pre-evacuation times measured in the present study are significantly lower compared to existing data from the literature for the same type of occupancy. Walking speed data collected in corridors in the present study is within the range of the values reported in previous studies. Further, walking speeds on descending stairways measured in the present study were significantly higher than those available in the literature. However, the novel dataset presented in this study is in accordance with the values recommended in well-known guidelines (such as the SFPE Handbook) and could be used in the future to simulate evacuations of office buildings.