Evacuation in Complex Environments - An Analysis of Evacuation Conditions at a Tunnel Construction Site

Published: 14 April, 2010

Experiments have shown that the evacuation characteristics in complex environments differ significantly from evacuation in public buildings. This has to do with, for example, the necessity to move along paths that may not be optimal for evacuation, i.e., movement on ladders and through narrow passages. In some cases, protective clothing has to be removed before evacuation can be initiated, which means that the pre-movement time can be quite long. Another difference compared to public building evacuations is that the attitudes among the workers towards fire safety education and safety drills is sometimes very negative. Results from an evacuation experiment from an environment identified as complex are presented; evacuation from a tunnel boring machine (TBM) where refuge chambers were used. In addition, some preliminary modelling results are presented for the tunnel in question. The paper will focus on evacuation in complex environments and, more specifically, it will attempt to
- identify movement characteristics for people in complex environments,
- discuss technical measures that can improve evacuation, and
- suggest management procedures that can improve evacuation

File: 182-191_Evacuation in Complex Environments.pdf (1021k)

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