To escape a dangerous building emergency occupants may need to respond quickly, assess the environment, plan their actions and tackle possible problems during evacuation. In this study 147 participants were tested in an experimental evacuation design for the effects of three environmental factors (fire alarm, lighting and emergency exit signs illumination) on problem-solving abilities. The experimental evacuation scenarios consisted of: (1) fire alarm, normal lighting conditions and illuminated emergency exit signs, (2) fire alarm, dark environment and illuminated emergency exit signs and (3) fire alarm, dark environment and not illuminated emergency exit signs. The tested problem-solving abilities were the time to plan actions and number of excess moves on the Tower of London test. The main results indicate that the third experimental evacuation scenario led to a decrease of 25.9% in planning time, compared to the control scenario. Age also had a significant effect on planning time. The oldest participants took or needed on average 42 s more planning time than the youngest participants, an increase of 146.9%. Furthermore, the second and third experimental evacuation scenario led to significant more excess moves, compared to the control scenario. However, the older the participants the less excess moves they had. For gender no significant effects on problem-solving abilities were found. In addition, the relationships between problem-solving abilities and building evacuation time were investigated. Longer planning times were associated with longer evacuation times and more excess moves were associated with shorter evacuation times. Practical implications for building and safety managers are to add training in darkness or assume more evacuation time in darkness or for older aged populations in evacuation plans and drills. Future research should collect more quantitative data about effects of various environmental factors and personal characteristics, such as problem-solving styles, age and gender, on building evacuation behaviour.@en

Building fires can be considered a risk to the health and safety of occupants. Environmental factors in building fires might affect the speed of an evacuation. Therefore, in this study participants (N = 153) were tested in an experimental design for the effects of (1) a fire alarm, (2) darkness and (3) the use of emergency exit signs on building evacuation time. In addition, the effects of age and gender on evacuation time were investigated. The main results indicate that the combination of a fire alarm, darkness and not illuminated emergency exit signs had a significant negative influence on evacuation time, namely an increase in evacuation time of 26.6% respectively 28.1%. Another important finding is that age had a significant negative effect on evacuation time. The increase in evacuation time was at least 30.4% for participants aged 56 years or older compared to participants aged 18–25 years. For gender no significant effect was found. Building and safety managers can use these results by including longer evacuation time considerations – based on darkness and older age – in their evacuation plans. Future research should focus further on investigating the effects of personal and psychological characteristics on evacuation behaviour and evacuation time.

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Are there cultural differences and similarities in the way occupants respond to evacuation notifications? Evacuation response behaviour is characterised by the way occupants react to evacuation notifications to validate what is happening around them and prepare for evacuation movement. This study presents a cross-cultural survey based on a case study of a library evacuation to specifically explore how national culture - combined with cues and affiliation - influence evacuation response behaviour. A total of 585 adults from Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey and the United Kingdom participated in the survey. The main results show that for the three scenarios explored (1) UK participants perform significantly fewer response tasks than participants from the other countries, (2) participants from all countries first look around to see what is happening, and seek additional information as one of the first three tasks they perform, (3) Czech, Turkish and UK participants are more likely to wait for a friend/colleague in a scenario without cues than with cues. These results provide insights for safety practitioners and other stakeholders on the importance of cross-cultural research for evacuation behaviour and its inclusion in policy making and emergency preparation.@en

More and more people visit mass events, while also the number of mass events is increasing. However, the choice behavior of visitors during these mass events is not yet well known. To get insight into this behavior, 109 visitors of Mysteryland (a Dutch dance festival with 60,000 visitors) have carried a GPS tracker during their stay at the event terrain and filled in a survey afterwards. Using the trajectories from the GPS trackers and the survey answers, we have identified the personal characteristics of the visitors and determined their route and activity choice behavior during the festival, including the effects of these choices on the use of the infrastructure and the facilities (such as the stages). A GPS tracker in combination with demographic information and information on visitor behavior through a survey has proven to be a valuable tool to get insight into visitor behavior during festivals. This research will be followed up in 2016 to get a larger sample and more detailed information on the choices for the performances and stages visitors attend.@en