State-of-the-art high-rise building emergency evacuation behavior

Abstract

Emergency evacuation in case of an emergency is a crucial problem in high-rise buildings, as many occupants are in a limited amount of space. To improve building safety design and evacuation strategies, it is essential to understand how individuals behave during an evacuation in high-rise buildings. This paper surveys the recently available literature on evacuation in high-rise buildings with the following objectives: (1) to review the high-rise building evacuation experiment methods; (2) to review the wayfinding and impact factors in horizontal evacuation; and (3) to review the individual and crowd behaviors in vertical evacuation. The review highlights the application of the virtual reality technology in evacuation experiments and the two-side effect of the group behavior in high-rise buildings. Future research should focus on quantitative pre-evacuation behavior study, the elevator’s assistant function, and the impact of group relations on evacuation. As the height of high-rise buildings continues to increase, individual characteristics, such as mobility issues and fatigue, warrant further study.