Search results

Uneven distribution and mistarget beneficiaries are among problems encountered during post-disaster relief operations in 2010 Mount Merapi eruption. The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirically founded agent-based simulation model addressing the evacuation dynamics and to explore coordination mechanism and other promising strategies during last-mile relief delivery.

An agent-based model which was specified and parameterized by empirical research (interviews and survey) was developed to understand the mechanism of individual decision making underlying the evacuation dynamics. A set of model testing was conducted to evaluate confidence level of the model in representing the evacuation dynamics during post-disaster of 2010 Mount Merapi eruption. Three scenarios of last-mile relief delivery at both strategic and operational levels were examined to evaluate quantitatively the effectiveness of the coordination mechanism and to explore other promising strategies.

Results indicate that the empirically founded agent-based modeling was able to reproduce the general pattern of observable Internal Displaced Persons based on government records, both at micro and macro levels, with a statistically non-significant difference. Low hazard perception and leader-following behavior which refuses to evacuate are the two factors responsible for late evacuation. Unsurprisingly, coordination through information sharing results in better performance than without coordination. To deal with both uneven distribution and long-term demand fulfillment, coordination among volunteers during aid distribution (at downstream operation) is not sufficient. The downstream coordination should also be accompanied with coordination between aid centers at the upstream operation. Furthermore, the coordination which is combined with other operational strategies, such as clustering strategy, using small-sized trucks and pre-positioning strategy, seems to be promising. It appears that the combined strategy of coordination and clustering strategy performs best among other combined strategies.

The significant role of early evacuation and self-evacuation behavior toward efficient evacuation indicates that human factor (i.e. hazard perception and cultural factor) should be considered in designing evacuation plan. Early warning system through both technology and community empowerment is necessary to support early evacuation. The early warning system should also be accompanied with at least 69 percent of the population performing self-evacuation behavior for the effective evacuation. As information sharing through coordination is necessary to avoid redundant efforts, uneven distribution and eventually to reduce unmet demand, the government can act as a coordinating actor to authorize the operation and mobilize the resources. The combination of coordination and another strategy reducing lead time such as clustering analysis, thus increasing responsiveness, is seemly strategy for efficient and effective last-mile relief distribution.

Literature on coordination is dominated by qualitative approach, which is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness quantitatively. Providing realistic setting of the evacuation dynamics in the course of the 2010 Mount Merapi eruption, the empirically founded agent-based model can be used to understand the factors influencing the evacuation dynamics and subsequently to quantitatively examine coordination mechanisms and other potential strategies toward efficient and effective last-mile relief distribution.

The Aso area of Kumamoto Prefecture and the western part of Oita Prefecture in Japan experienced heavy rainfall from midnight until morning on 12 July 2012. Flooding and landslides caused by this torrential rain killed 31 people and injured 11. This paper aims to analyze a time series of flood risk perception and evacuation behavior, and to identify factors that promote effective autonomous evacuation.

A time series of flood risk perception and evacuation behavior following the 2012 flood was developed and systematically analyzed. Differences between the data sets (compiled from survey data) for the evacuated group and the non-evacuated group were statistically evaluated. Then, an evacuation behavior model was developed to simulate which households would be likely to evacuate in different scenarios. The relationship between disaster prevention and activities of a local community were also statistically assessed.

This study concludes that an assessment of river conditions and evacuation advice from fellow local community members are the factors that most strongly influence and promote autonomous evacuation. This study also revealed that the everyday activities of a local community have the potential to foster effective disaster prevention and emergency responses if they promote the building of relationships between community members.

The research focused on actual decision-making and autonomous evacuation behavior. Whereas previous studies were limited to the analysis of activities of disaster prevention on a normal day, this study proved that the usual activity level in local community activities and relationships significantly affected evacuation behavior.

Surveys of the public have been conducted to document and explain evacuation behaviour in a wide range of threatening events during the past half-century. Many of the behaviours are directly applicable to transportation modelling and management: whether people evacuate, when they depart, where they go, the routes they employ and the number of vehicles they use. Data have usually been collected by telephone interview or mailed questionnaires. Traditional survey methods should be supplemented by Internet surveys, traffic counts and GPS tracking. More real-time data collection should be employed to document a wider range of behaviours during a threat more accurately and to better understand the dynamics of evacuation decisions.

This paper aims to present a systematic review of the published literature on building information model (BIM)-based simulation tools used for occupant evacuation over the past 23 years.

A literature review was conducted on BIM-based simulation tools used for occupant evacuation over the past 23 years. The search identified a total of 37 relevant papers, which were reviewed. The paper describes the use of BIM-based simulation tools over the years and identifies the research gaps.

BIM-based simulation tools have undergone progressive development, with constant improvements through the integration of advanced tools and collection of more data. These tools can assist in identifying faults in the building design. The outcomes of the simulation were not entirely accurate, as real-life scenarios vary depending on the various building types and the behavior of their occupants.

This study contributes to the literature through reviewing the capabilities of BIM-based simulation tools and the different simulation methods along with their limitations.

Fire safety engineers and architects can comprehend the utilization of BIM-based simulation tools to enhance the fire evacuation in light of their shortcomings and flaws.

BIM-based simulation tools are becoming more advanced and widely used. There has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the capabilities of the integration of BIM tools and simulation modeling for occupant evacuation. This study guides researchers on the capabilities and efficiencies of integrated solutions for occupant evacuations and their inherent shortcomings. The study identifies future research areas in BIM-based tools for occupant evacuation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate human behaviour under a situation of fire in high-rise residential buildings and identify the factors that motivate people to evacuate.

A literature review was conducted to identify different factors of human behaviour during a situation of fire and identify challenges during the evacuation. Through a mixed research method approach, the paper identifies human background, experience and knowledge with fire safety. The paper discusses the challenges occupants face during evacuation based on previous evacuation experience and what occupants were doing during the fire alarm.

The paper has identified the challenges and the factors that affect occupants’ decision during fire emergency in high-rise residential buildings. It is clear from the findings that occupants have limited knowledge and skills on how to deal with fire emergencies. Occupants tend to depend on other evacuation routes. Occupants tend to ignore the fire alarm and usually they investigate if it is true or false.

The paper provides the knowledge and findings of occupants during fire emergency to fire engineers, facility managers, owners, and other professionals to assist during the design phase, and modify designs based on this findings of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate human behaviour during fire evacuations in multi-storey residential buildings through a focus on the challenges and obstacles that occupants face. In addition, the paper aims to study all the various behaviours that are relevant to the evacuation strategies/plans in the UK of multi-storey buildings in large cities.

A literature review was conducted to identify the factors occupants face and also the decision making of occupants regarding the methods of egress. A mixed methods research was adopted using interviews and a questionnaire survey. The findings from the interviews and survey are benchmarked against the information gathered from the literature review.

The paper identifies various challenges that occupants face when evacuating a multi-storey residential building. In terms of the decision-making process, the research results evidence that occupants could be given more information on the evacuation procedures within their specific building. The paper also finds that occupants remain reluctant to use a lift during evacuation in fire event, irrespective of any signage clearly stating that is appropriate to do so in the context of modern lift technology.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge available on the evacuation of multi-storey buildings located in large cities within the UK, outlining the potential areas for future research, focussed on providing an insight of the behavioural decisions made by the occupants make when evacuating a building in the event of a fire.

The lack of studies about the relevance of disaster awareness factors and disaster evacuation as a part of disaster responses especially for fire cases in an academic environment in Indonesia has triggered this study to explore the disaster awareness factors and evacuation experiment without emergency alarm for case study students in the classroom. The relevance of disaster awareness factors in transforming into practical action and decision in a disaster evacuation need to be examined to study the relevance of both phases in disaster.

This research conducted a quantitative approach by studying questionnaires from 162 respondents collectively divided into five groups to examine the student disaster awareness factors randomly from those groups. The qualitative approach was implemented through the evacuation experiments that were conducted twice to analyze the disaster evacuation performance. The analysis for the relevance is conducted by comparing the result of the questionnaire study and the evacuation experiment.

According to the questionnaire study, generally, the students are highly confident with their hazard knowledge in disaster awareness except that half of them are doubtful about appropriate steps in a disaster. The experiment without explosive sound showed that they have slower responses in the critical moment of evacuation. The response in the experiments showed relevance with several disaster awareness factors

This study has explored the relevance of disaster awareness factors with disaster response in a campus building. In the part of reducing risk during fire disaster, this research shows the importance of social interaction and hazard knowledge during the disaster.

The improvement of disaster evacuation procedures and training in a campus building is mandatory to reduce disaster risk based on the relevance of disaster awareness factors and disaster response in this study.

This study measures the relevance of disaster awareness factors performance of the students by comparing it to their actions and decisions in an experimental setting of fire building. The disaster awareness factor performance was measured by a questionnaire survey while the experiments were deployed to observe the performance of their actions and decisions during evacuation as part of the disaster response phase.

Emergency evacuation plans are often developed under the assumption that evacuees will use wayfinding strategies such as taking the shortest distance route to their nearest exit. The purpose of this paper is to analyze empirical data from a wildfire evacuation analyzed to determine whether evacuees took a shortest distance route to their nearest exit and to identify any alternate wayfinding strategies that they may have used.

The wildfire evacuation analysis presented in this paper is the outcome of a natural experiment. A post-fire online survey was conducted, which included an interactive map interface that allowed evacuees to identify the route that they took. The survey results were integrated with several additional data sets using a GIS. Network analysis was used to compare the routes selected by evacuees to their shortest distance routes, and statistical hypothesis testing was employed to identify the wayfinding strategies that may have been used.

The network analysis revealed that 31 percent of evacuees took a shortest distance route to their nearest exit. Hypothesis testing showed that evacuees selected routes that had significantly longer distances and travel times than the shortest distance routes, and indicated that factors such as the downhill slope percentage of routes and the elevation of exits may have impacted the wayfinding process.

This research is best regarded as a spatiotemporal snapshot of wayfinding behavior during a single wildfire evacuation, but could inspire additional research to establish more generalizable results.

This research may help emergency managers develop more effective wildfire evacuation plans.

This research presents an analysis of an original data set that contributes to the broader body of scientific knowledge on wayfinding and spatial behavior during emergency evacuations.

The main purpose of this research is to achieve the evacuation strategy of people in high-rise office buildings. This purpose is achieved by identifying the individuals' behaviors during a fire accident and the relationship between these behaviors and their risk perception.

The method of this study is mixed-methods type. The first stage was carried out using the qualitative method and descriptive phenomenology and the analyses were done using the Colaizzi method, and the second stage was carried out using the quantitative method of field descriptive survey type whose analyses were conducted through SPSS software.

The results reveal that the individuals attempting evacuation from the upper floors above the fire level were mostly injured and the ones who remained in the building and got help from fire fighters were rescued. At the end, the study goes on to suggest the stay-in-place approach with regards to the behaviors formed in individuals, closed plan of architectural design, lack of suitable fire extinguishers as well as inappropriate individual trainings.

Lack of similar research in the field of fire in Iran caused bottlenecks such as lack of cooperation of relevant organizations in the path of the research. Another factor that limited the present research was the determination of people trapped in fire. In this case, those who were present in the incident had to be chosen and the questionnaire was completed based on their opinions. This limited the research for reasons such as the relocation of some people from buildings or their death.

The practical results of this research can be used in reviewing the rules and regulations of high-rise building fire code. By properly compiling the regulations of high-rise building codes based on this research, human injuries in fire hazards can be greatly prevented. Due to the collapse of the Plasco building in Iran and the creation of inappropriate memories in the minds of people of high-rise buildings, with the construction of buildings based on the rules and regulations in accordance with the fire code, the construction market as well as the sale and purchase of such buildings will flourish and numerous financial and job turnovers are created in the field of this type of buildings.

This study is innovative in determining appropriate evacuation strategy that are related to the individuals' risk perception in high-rise buildings, as well as achieving results to review the rules and regulations of high-rise office buildings based on the high-rise building fire code.