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The purpose of this paper is to investigate US noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO) in South Korea and devise planning and management procedures that improve the efficiency of those missions.

It formulates a time-staged network model of the South Korean noncombatant evacuation system as a mixed integer linear program to determine an optimal flow configuration that minimizes the time required to complete an evacuation. This solution considers the capacity and resource constraints of multiple transportation modes and effectively allocates the limited assets across a time-staged network to create a feasible evacuation plan. That solution is post-processed and a vehicle routing procedure then produces a high resolution schedule for each individual asset throughout the entire duration of the NEO.

This work makes a clear improvement in the decision-making and resource allocation methodology currently used in a NEO on the Korea peninsula. It immediately provides previously unidentifiable information regarding the scope and requirements of a particular evacuation scenario and then produces an executable schedule for assets to facilitate mission accomplishment.

The significance of this work is not relegated only to evacuation operations on the Korean peninsula; there are numerous other NEO and natural disaster related scenarios that can benefit from this approach.

The current fire protection measures in buildings do not account for all contemporary fire hazard issues, which has made fire safety a growing concern. Therefore, this paper aims to present a critical review of current fire protection measures and their applicability to address current challenges relating to fire hazards in buildings.

To overcome fire hazards in buildings, impact of fire hazards is also reviewed to set the context for fire protection measures. Based on the review, an integrated framework for mitigation of fire hazards is proposed. The proposed framework involves enhancement of fire safety in four key areas: fire protection features in buildings, regulation and enforcement, consumer awareness and technology and resources advancement. Detailed strategies on improving fire safety in buildings in these four key areas are presented, and future research and training needs are identified.

Current fire protection measures lead to an unquantified level of fire safety in buildings, provide minimal strategies to mitigate fire hazard and do not account for contemporary fire hazard issues. Implementing key measures that include reliable fire protection systems, proper regulation and enforcement of building code provisions, enhancement of public awareness and proper use of technology and resources is key to mitigating fire hazard in buildings. Major research and training required to improve fire safety in buildings include developing cost-effective fire suppression systems and rational fire design approaches, characterizing new materials and developing performance-based codes.

The proposed framework encompasses both prevention and management of fire hazard. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified, and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework.

Fire represents a severe hazard in both developing and developed countries and poses significant threat to life, structure, property and environment. The proposed framework has social implications as it addresses some of the current challenges relating to fire hazard in buildings and will enhance overall fire safety.

The novelty of proposed framework lies in encompassing both prevention and management of fire hazard. This is unlike current fire safety improvement strategies, which focus only on improving fire protection features in buildings (i.e. managing impact of fire hazard) using performance-based codes. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework. Special emphasis is given to cost-effectiveness of proposed strategies, and research and training needs for further enhancing building fire safety are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to identify critical success factors for the management of complex change processes in fire service organizations and to apply these in a case study of the Rotterdam-Rijnmond fire service.

The paper provides review of literature on organizational change, case study of the Rotterdam-Rijnmond fire service supported by the analysis of policy documents and 30 semi-structured interviews with key persons.

Combining different theoretical approaches helps to get a more complete picture of important issues and dilemma’s in the management of change processes – which is a first step in the successful implementation of changes – whereas other approaches tend to emphasize only some and overlook others. Applied in a case study, this approach revealed serious weaknesses in the management of change within the Rotterdam-Rijnmond fire service and offered practical guides for solutions.

This paper combines insights from different theoretical approaches into a more integrated perspective that aims to be helpful as a practical tool for designing and implementing complex changes in fire service organizations.

This paper explores the quality and flow of facade product information and the capabilities for avoiding the risk of facade fires early in the design process.

A qualitative case study using the process tracing method is conducted in two stages. First, a thematic analysis of reports and literature identified two categories for the problems that caused fast fire spread across the Grenfell Tower facade. This enabled classifying the identified problems into four stages of a facade life cycle: product design and manufacturing, procurement, facade design and construction. Second, the capabilities for avoiding the problems were explored by conducting in-depth interviews with 18 experts in nine countries, analyzing design processes and designers' expertise and examining the usability of three digital interfaces in providing required information for designing fire-safe facades.

The results show fundamental flaws in the quality of facade product information and usability of digital interfaces concerning fire safety. These flaws, fragmented design processes and overreliance on other specialists increase the risk of design defects that cause fast fire spread across facades.

The findings have implications for standardization of building product information, digitalization in industrialized construction and facade design management.

This research adds to the body of knowledge on sustainability in the built environment. It is the first study to highlight the fundamental problem of facade product information, which requires urgent attention in the rapid transition toward digital and industrialized construction.

This paper aims to evaluate the quality control systems for constructions in seven countries in Europe with the purpose to trace innovative approaches and best practices that can serve as examples for other countries.

The paper is based on a series of research projects carried out over a number of years. The research results were updated in 2016 with a desktop research project in seven European countries. The results from this latest project form the heart of this paper. The information is organised into tables that describe and analyse the main features of the quality control systems of the countries (e.g. scope, focus and main characteristics of the procedures and quality demands on building professionals).

Several similar trends can be recognised in the quality control systems of the various European Union (EU) countries. Quality control is getting more and more privatised and the control framework is setting checks and balances throughout the construction process. Other findings are that scope and focus of the statutory control is unbalanced. Within the control processes emphasis is put on the safety aspects of complex constructions. Far fewer demands are made on the quality of the builders. Re-orientation of the building regulatory framework seems to be needed.

The paper only focusses on European countries where private quality control is established and on selected topics. The findings are based on desktop research and not on the practical experiences of the stakeholders involved in the countries studied.

The paper draws some important recommendations for policymakers in the building regulatory field. It suggests both an enhancement of the effectiveness of the quality control procedure as well as the commitment of builders to comply with the regulations.

The quality of constructions is essential for the wellbeing and safety of its users, its occupants or its visitors. This applies to the whole range of quality aspects: structural- and fire safety, health, sustainability and usability aspects. The analyses and recommendations of this paper aim to contribute to an improvement of the overall construction quality.

The paper makes an original contribution to the (limited) literature that is available in this field. The results can be used to situate the quality control systems of each member state within the EU, to assess the main trends, and it can be used as a guide to develop strategic choices on possible improvements in each country.

Major incidents in tunnel environment will pose several challenges for the emergency service organisations in terms of heat, visibility and lack of experiences from working in confined environments. These aspects, in turn, could pose challenges to establish collaboration. This study aims to contribute to the field of collaborative tunnel responses by exploring how “common knowledge” (Edwards, 2011) is built by the emergency services organisations, that is, what the organisations consider important while working on a potentially common problem, and their motives for the interpretations and actions if a major tunnel incident occurs.

Participants from the road traffic control centre, emergency dispatch centre, emergency medical service, rescue service and police were included in the study. Data from four focus group sessions was analysed using thematic analysis.

The study revealed that the tunnel environment presents specific aspects of how common knowledge was produced related to lifesaving and safety. The themes structuring mechanisms to reduce uncertainty, managing information for initial priorities, aligning responsibilities without hampering each other's work and adjusting actions to manage distance, illustrated how common knowledge was produced as crucial aspects to a collaborative response. Organising management sites, grasping and communicating risks, accessing the injury victims, was challenged by the confined environment, physical distances and imbalance in access to information and preparedness activities in tunnel environments.

This study offers new insights of common knowledge, by illustrating a motive perspective on collaborative responses in tunnel incidents. Creating interoperability calls not just for readiness for action and tunnel safety, but also training activities acknowledging different interpretations and motives to further develop tunnel responses.

When a railway emergency occurs, it often leads to unexpected consequences, especially for trains of higher speed and larger passenger flow. Therefore, the railway emergency plan, a pre-established plan to deal with emergencies, plays an important role in reducing injuries and losses. However, the existing railway emergency plans remain as plain-text documents, requiring lots of manual work to capture the important regulations. This paper aims to propose a visualized, formal and digital railway emergency plan modeling method based on hierarchical timed Petri net (HTPN), which is also of better interpretability.

First, the general railway emergency plan was analyzed. Second, the HTPN-based framework model for the general railway emergency plan was proposed. Then, the instantiated model of electric multiple units rescue emergency plan was built by ExSpect, a Petri net simulation tool.

The experiments show that the proposed model is more digital and of better readability, visualization and performability, and, meanwhile, can generally conform to the practice well, offering a promising reference for future analysis of the optimization of railway emergency plans.

This study offers a promising reference for future analysis of the optimization of railway emergency plans.

This paper aims to explore the development and application of place crowd safety management tools for areas of public assembly and major events, from a practitioner perspective.

The crowd safety risk assessment model is known as design, information, management-ingress, circulation, egress (DIM-ICE) (Still, 2009) is implemented to optimise crowd safety and potentially throughput. Three contrasting case studies represent examples of some of the world’s largest and most challenging crowd safety projects.

The paper provides some insight into how the DIM-ICE model can be used to aid strategic planning at major events, assess potential crowd risks and to avoid potential crowd safety issues.

It provides further clarity to what effective place management practice is. Evidence-based on the case studies demonstrates that the application of the DIM-ICE model is useful for recognising potential place crowd safety issues and identifying areas for require improvement.

Crowd science is an emerging field of research, which is primarily motivated by place crowd safety issues in congested places; the application and reporting of an evidence-based model (i.e. DIM-ICE model) add to this. The paper addresses a research gap related to the implementation of analytic tools in characterising place crowd dynamics.

Despite the contributions of both the oil and gas and construction industries to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country, both industries are still marred by incessant accidents. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare the health and safety practises of the construction and oil and gas industries in Nigeria in order to suggest the best approach to health and safety practices.

A survey questionnaire was developed and administered to professionals working in the construction and oil and gas industries. Data were analysed using the relative importance index (RII). An independent sample t-test was also conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference in the construction and oil and gas industries.

The study revealed that the rate at which health and safety are practised in the oil and gas industry is comparatively high compared to how they are practised in the construction industry. Proper site layout and planning, provision of a safe working environment, proper health and safety risk assessment were more predominantly practised in the oil and gas industry, while proper site layout and planning, disallowing unauthorised entry into site and the provision of a safe working environment were predominantly practised in the construction industry.

This study is the first to compare the health and safety practises of the construction and oil and gas industries in Nigeria. This study was significant because it would provide insight into construction and oil and gas managers, as well as other decision-makers in both industries, on how to improve health and safety practices.

Since Weick’s (1993) seminal Mann Gulch paper articulated a collapse of sensemaking, scholars have repeatedly investigated sensemaking downstream of enactment. Motivated by another wildland firefighting tragedy, the tragic loss of 19 firefighters in Arizona in 2013, this study aims to look at enactment itself and reveals that the endogenous creation and re-creation of the wildland fire caused a fatal feedback loop of “trigger traps” leading to perpetual enactment that short-circuited sensemaking. Wildland fires can have unpredictable consequences, which triggers in individual sensemakers a fatal and continuous return to the beginning of the sensemaking process.

This paper’s approach is a case study based on a textual analysis of sources investigating the 2013 Yarnell Hill fire. The authors also carefully compared the Yarnell Hill and Mann Gulch disasters in search of breakdowns in sensemaking that could help us understand why we continue to lose firefighters in the line of duty.

The simultaneously volatile and complex environment at Yarnell illustrates sensemaking antecedents to the study of enactment. The findings suggest ways that organizations – those fighting wildfire or those fighting a global pandemic – can avoid getting trapped in the early stages of enactment and can retain resilience in their sensemaking.

This paper introduces the concept of “trigger traps” to help explain the fatal feedback loop of repeated environmental triggers in the early stages of sensemaking in volatile environments.