Sequential evacuation strategy for multiple rooms toward the same means of egress

TL;DR

This paper investigates sequential evacuation strategies for multi-room buildings using microscopic simulation, demonstrating that a staged approach starting from the lowest floor can improve evacuation efficiency over simultaneous evacuation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel sequential evacuation strategy for multiple rooms sharing a means of egress, supported by microscopic simulation analysis.

Findings

Sequential evacuation outperforms simultaneous evacuation in efficiency.

Starting evacuation from the lowest floor reduces overall evacuation time.

The study provides a basis for designing improved evacuation protocols and alarm systems.

Abstract

This paper examines different evacuation strategies for systems where several rooms evacuate trough the same means of egress, using microscopic pedestrian simulation.As a case study, a medium-rise office building is considered. It was found that the standard strategy, whereby the simultaneous evacuation of all levels is performed, can be improved by a sequential evacuation, beginning with the lowest floor and continuing successively with each one of the upper floors after a certain delay. The importance of the present research is that it provides the basis for the design and implementation of new evacuation strategies and alarm systems that could significantly improve the evacuation of multiple rooms trough a common means of escape.