| 1. |
- Baig, Khadija, et al.
(författare)
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Empirical evolution of an evacuation reporting template
- 2024
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Ingår i: Safety Science. - 0925-7535. ; 175
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Evacuation drills are frequently required components of health and safety processes, but they are often documented poorly (if at all), and thus might generate very little useful or actionable information. Given how much drills cost (in terms of potential risk to participants, financial overhead of downtime and restart time, etc.) it is perhaps surprising that even large organizations often lack a standardized form for recording important information about their conduct. The starting point for this paper was the development of such a template form for a large organization. After producing an initial design based on well-established principles, we obtained both quantitative and qualitative feedback from fire safety and evacuation experts. This then generated a final version of the form design, which was adopted and modified by end-users/emergency planners within the organization to document evacuations. Interviews with three end-users confirmed the usability and usefulness of the form, but they also highlighted second-order observations into emergency procedures (i.e., they generated new information about the organization's protocols that would not otherwise have been foregrounded or recorded). Our form offers a useful starting point for any organization that wishes to record the details of evacuation drills, but a perhaps more unexpected and abiding conclusion is that the process of generating such a form from first principles can – in itself – offer useful and previously inaccessible insights into how an organization conceptualizes and manages its evacuation drills.
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| 2. |
- Gwynne, Steve M.V., et al.
(författare)
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Roxborough Park Community Wildfire Evacuation Drill : Data Collection and Model Benchmarking
- 2023
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Ingår i: Fire Technology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0015-2684 .- 1572-8099. ; 59:2, s. 879-901
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wildfires are increasing in scale, frequency and longevity, and are affecting new locations as environmental conditions change. This paper presents a dataset collected during a community evacuation drill performed in Roxborough Park, Colorado (USA) in 2019. This is a wildland–urban interface community including approximately 900 homes. Data concerning several aspects of community response were collected through observations and surveys: initial population location, pre-evacuation times, route use, and arrival times at the evacuation assembly point. Data were used as inputs to benchmark two evacuation models that adopt different modelling approaches. The WUI-NITY platform and the Evacuation Management System model were applied across a range of scenarios where assumptions regarding pre-evacuation delays and the routes used were varied according to original data collection methods (and interpretation of the data generated). Results are mostly driven by the assumptions adopted for pre-evacuation time inputs. This is expected in communities with a low number of vehicles present on the road and relatively limited traffic congestion. The analysis enabled the sensitivity of the modelling approaches to different datasets to be explored, given the different modelling approaches adopted. The performance of the models were sensitive to the data employed (derived from either observations or self-reporting) and the evacuation phases addressed in them. This indicates the importance of monitoring the impact of including data in a model rather than simply on the data itself, as data affects models in different ways given the modelling methods employed. The dataset is released in open access and is deemed to be useful for future wildfire evacuation modelling calibration and validation efforts.
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| 3. |
- Gwynne, Steve, et al.
(författare)
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Modeling and mapping dynamic vulnerability to better assess WUI evacuation performance
- 2019
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Ingår i: Fire and Materials. - : Wiley. - 0308-0501 .- 1099-1018. ; 43:6, s. 644-660
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire incidents are likely to become more severe and will affect more and more people. Given their scale and complexity, WUI incidents require a multidomain approach to assess their impact and the effectiveness of any mitigation efforts. The authors recently produced a specification for a simulation framework that quantifies evacuation performance during WUI incidents including inputs from three core domains: fire development, pedestrian performance and vehicular traffic [26]. This framework could produce new insights by simulating evolving conditions of WUI incidents based on developments and interactions between the core components. Thus, it aims to overcome known limitations of previous approaches (eg, static assessment, single domain approaches, or lack of projection), as well as to provide explanatory insights into the outcomes produced by the simulation. The proposed framework would also advance geo-spatial mapping of WUI incidents. The concept of dynamic vulnerability, (Formula presented.), is at the core of the framework and is enabled by the integrated simulation framework and the emergent conditions predicted. This allows users to construct richer incident narratives from the perspective of specific locations or subpopulations, and also makes fewer simplifying assumptions regarding interactions between the three core domains.
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| 4. |
- Gwynne, Steve, et al.
(författare)
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The future of evacuation drills : Assessing and enhancing evacuee performance
- 2020
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Ingår i: Safety Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0925-7535. ; 129
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Evacuation drills are generally the main mechanism for improving or measuring occupant performance in emergency situations, but their effectiveness is often hard to measure, and there is limited evidence for sustained training benefits. However, innovations in technology (e.g., augmented/virtual reality, novel sensors and wearable tech) offer (when combined with new approaches to designing and delivering drills) significant opportunities for a “next generation” of evidence-based evacuation drills. In this paper, we present the findings of a recent trans-national research project; we establish the main limitations of existing drills, propose a framework for the assessment of both training and evaluation aspects of drills, make a number of recommendations, and suggest a programme of work for their implementation. The paper, therefore, provides a conceptual foundation for future work which will focus on (1) establishing an evidence-based methodology for assessing evacuation drills (and alternatives), (2) harnessing novel objective and automatable approaches to data capture/analytics in order to better characterize performance, (3), developing alternatives to the current drill model, based on emerging technologies, and (4) developing guidance for regulatory bodies on the costs and benefits of each approach for different scenarios.
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| 5. |
- Kinateder, Max, et al.
(författare)
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Social influence on route choice in a virtual reality tunnel fire
- 2014
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Ingår i: Transportation Research. Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. - : Elsevier BV. - 1369-8478. ; 26:A, s. 116-125
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction Evacuation from tunnel fire emergencies requires quick decision-making and swift action from the tunnel occupants. Social influence (SI) has been identified as an important factor in evacuation. Methods Two experimental groups were immersed into a virtual road tunnel fire. In the SI group participants saw a virtual agent moving on the shortest route to the nearest emergency exit. In the control group, participants were alone. Destination and exit choices were analyzed using functional analysis and inferential statistics. Results SI affected route choice during evacuation but not destination choice: There were no group differences regarding destination choice. Participants in the SI group were more likely to choose a route similar to the virtual agent. Participants in the control group were more likely to choose a longer route along the tunnel walls. Discussion Social influence does not only affect behavior activation but also more subtle choices, such as route choice, during evacuation.
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| 6. |
- Kinateder, Max, et al.
(författare)
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Virtual Reality for Fire Evacuation Research
- 2014
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Ingår i: Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems. - 2300-5963. ; 2, s. 313-321
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Virtual reality (VR) has become a popular approach to study human behavior in fire. The present position paper analyses Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of VR as a research tool for human behavior in fire. Virtual environments provide a maximum of experimental control, are easy to replicate, have relatively high ecological validity, and allow safe study of occupant behavior in scenarios that otherwise would be too dangerous. Lower ecological validity compared to field studies, ergonomic aspects, and technical limitations are the main weaknesses of the method. Increasingly realistic simulations and other technological advances provide new opportunities for this relatively young method. In this position paper, we argue that VR is a promising complementary laboratory tool in the quest to understand human behavior in fire and to improve fire safety.
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| 7. |
- Ronchi, Enrico, et al.
(författare)
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Evacuation travel paths in virtual reality experiments for tunnel safety analysis
- 2015
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Ingår i: Fire Safety Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 0379-7112. ; 71, s. 257-267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A case study on the analysis of evacuation travel paths in virtual reality (VR) tunnel fire experiments is presented to increase the understanding on evacuation behaviour. A novel method based on the study of the parametric equations of the occupants’ evacuation travel paths using vector operators inspired by functional analysis theory and the new concept of interaction areas (IAs) is introduced. IAs are presented and calculated in order to represent the distance of an occupant from a reference point (e.g., an emergency exit, the fire source, etc.) over time. The method allows comparisons of travel paths between experimental groups as well as comparisons with reference paths (e.g. user-defined paths, real-world paths, etc.). Results show that a common assumption employed by evacuation models (the use of a hypothetical path based on the shortest distance) may be an over-simplistic approximation of the evacuation paths.
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| 8. |
- Ronchi, Enrico, et al.
(författare)
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New approaches to evacuation modelling for fire safety engineering applications
- 2019
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Ingår i: Fire Safety Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 0379-7112. ; 106, s. 197-209
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents the findings of the workshop “New approaches to evacuation modelling”, which took place on the 11th of June 2017 in Lund (Sweden)within the Symposium of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). The workshop gathered international experts in the field of fire evacuation modelling from 19 different countries and was designed to build a dialogue between the fire evacuation modelling world and experts in areas outside of fire safety engineering. The contribution to fire evacuation modelling of five topics within research disciplines outside fire safety engineering (FSE)have been discussed during the workshop, namely 1)Psychology/Human Factors, 2)Sociology, 3)Applied Mathematics, 4)Transportation, 5)Dynamic Simulation and Biomechanics. The benefits of exchanging information between these two groups are highlighted here in light of the topic areas discussed and the feedback received by the evacuation modelling community during the workshop. This included the feasibility of development/application of modelling methods based on fields other than FSE as well as a discussion on their implementation strengths and limitations. Each subject area is here briefly presented and its links to fire evacuation modelling are discussed. The feedback received during the workshop is discussed through a set of insights which might be useful for the future developments of evacuation models for fire safety engineering.
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| 9. |
- Wahlqvist, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
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The simulation of wildland-urban interface fire evacuation : The WUI-NITY platform
- 2021
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Ingår i: Safety Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0925-7535. ; 136
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wildfires are a significant safety risk to populations adjacent to wildland areas, known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). This paper introduces a modelling platform called WUI-NITY. The platform is built on the Unity3D game engine and simulates and visualises human behaviour and wildfire spread during an evacuation of WUI communities. The purpose of this platform is to enhance the situational awareness of responders and residents during evacuation scenarios by providing information on the dynamic evolution of the emergency. WUI-NITY represents current and predicted conditions by coupling the three key modelling layers of wildfire evacuation, namely the fire, pedestrian, and traffic movement. This allows predictions of evacuation behaviour over time. The current version of WUI-NITY demonstrates the feasibility and advantages of coupling the modelling layers. Its wildfire modelling layer is based on FARSITE, the pedestrian layer implements a dedicated pedestrian response and movement model, and the traffic layer includes a traffic evacuation model based on the Lighthill-Whitham-Richards model. The platform also includes a sub-model called PERIL that designs the spatial location of trigger buffers. The main contribution of this work is in the development of a modular and model-agnostic (i.e., not linked to a specific model) platform with consistent levels of granularity (allowing a comparable modelling resolution in the representation of each layer) in all three modelling layers. WUI-NITY is a powerful tool to protect against wildfires; it can enable education and training of communities, forensic studies of past evacuations and dynamic vulnerability assessment of ongoing emergencies.
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