Data collection and analysis of evacuation situations

This study covers data from 18 evacuation situations in different building types ranging from a single hospital ward to a stadium. Twelve of the cases were ordinary evacuation drills, four were real fire alarms and the remaining two were normal but congested situations. The data were collected in Finland, starting in autumn 2007 and finishing in autumn 2010. The data gathered are designed for the buildings' safety and security staff, the fire authorities, the fire safety engineers and the model developers. The results obtained from the evacuation situations are represented using quantitative and general approaches to link similar data together. The original data from the single evacuation cases are also represented individually. Several distributions were formed to quantify different time intervals of the whole evacuation process. The distributions were pre-movement times, total evacuation times, and walking speeds on smooth and inclined surfaces. The congested situations were investigated using correlations between the walking speeds and crowd densities. In the general part, the alarm systems, the pre-evacuation actions and the differences between the real fire alarms and the drills were monitored to reach conclusions about the reactions of the people and the safety staff. The behavioural aspects of humans were also analysed. The evacuation phase was investigated in terms of the exit routes and the people's door selection routines.