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Virtual Reality Evacuation Experiments on Way-Finding Systems for the Future Circular Collider

Arias, Silvia LU ; La Mendola, Saverio ; Wahlqvist, Jonathan LU ; Rios, Oriol ; Nilsson, Daniel LU and Ronchi, Enrico LU orcid (2019) In Fire Technology 55. p.2319-2340
Abstract

Evacuation times can be shortened in fire scenarios if people choose appropriate routes. Way-finding systems can be used to aid this process, thus their effectiveness needs to be evaluated. In the present study, the way-finding evacuation systems of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are investigated as its evacuation design presents several challenges from the fire safety perspective. To perform a comparison of different evacuation design solutions, a set of Virtual Reality (VR) experiments involving a total of 111 participants was performed. VR was used because the FCC facility is not built yet, and it allows for high experimental control and cost-effectiveness for comparisons... (More)

Evacuation times can be shortened in fire scenarios if people choose appropriate routes. Way-finding systems can be used to aid this process, thus their effectiveness needs to be evaluated. In the present study, the way-finding evacuation systems of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are investigated as its evacuation design presents several challenges from the fire safety perspective. To perform a comparison of different evacuation design solutions, a set of Virtual Reality (VR) experiments involving a total of 111 participants was performed. VR was used because the FCC facility is not built yet, and it allows for high experimental control and cost-effectiveness for comparisons of way-finding systems. The VR experiments reproduced a hypothetical fire emergency in which participants’ egress behaviour was investigated. Three scenarios were represented, each of them adopting different evacuation safety concepts and way-finding systems. Different installations were included in the scenarios, such as scenario (1) flashing lights, scenario (2) static or dynamic signage (i.e. active and dissuasive signage indicating the direction towards or away from the danger) and scenario (3) a robot placed on a monorail on the vault of the tunnel, able to localize people in the tunnel and provide way-guidance information. Results show that the combination of red flashing lights at the exits, dynamic signage and a robot equipped with green flashing lights yielded the highest compliance to the way-finding intent of the system (92.6% compliance vs 62.9% and 77.5% for scenarios 1 and 2 respectively).

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author
; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
CERN, Evacuation, FCC, Fire safety, Particle accelerators, Virtual Reality, Way-finding
in
Fire Technology
volume
55
pages
22 pages
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85065420173
ISSN
0015-2684
DOI
10.1007/s10694-019-00868-y
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b901e218-75e4-4386-beb8-48e4311dcfcb
date added to LUP
2019-06-03 14:41:00
date last changed
2022-04-26 00:52:58
@article{b901e218-75e4-4386-beb8-48e4311dcfcb,
  abstract     = {{<p>Evacuation times can be shortened in fire scenarios if people choose appropriate routes. Way-finding systems can be used to aid this process, thus their effectiveness needs to be evaluated. In the present study, the way-finding evacuation systems of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are investigated as its evacuation design presents several challenges from the fire safety perspective. To perform a comparison of different evacuation design solutions, a set of Virtual Reality (VR) experiments involving a total of 111 participants was performed. VR was used because the FCC facility is not built yet, and it allows for high experimental control and cost-effectiveness for comparisons of way-finding systems. The VR experiments reproduced a hypothetical fire emergency in which participants’ egress behaviour was investigated. Three scenarios were represented, each of them adopting different evacuation safety concepts and way-finding systems. Different installations were included in the scenarios, such as scenario (1) flashing lights, scenario (2) static or dynamic signage (i.e. active and dissuasive signage indicating the direction towards or away from the danger) and scenario (3) a robot placed on a monorail on the vault of the tunnel, able to localize people in the tunnel and provide way-guidance information. Results show that the combination of red flashing lights at the exits, dynamic signage and a robot equipped with green flashing lights yielded the highest compliance to the way-finding intent of the system (92.6% compliance vs 62.9% and 77.5% for scenarios 1 and 2 respectively).</p>}},
  author       = {{Arias, Silvia and La Mendola, Saverio and Wahlqvist, Jonathan and Rios, Oriol and Nilsson, Daniel and Ronchi, Enrico}},
  issn         = {{0015-2684}},
  keywords     = {{CERN; Evacuation; FCC; Fire safety; Particle accelerators; Virtual Reality; Way-finding}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{2319--2340}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Fire Technology}},
  title        = {{Virtual Reality Evacuation Experiments on Way-Finding Systems for the Future Circular Collider}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10694-019-00868-y}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10694-019-00868-y}},
  volume       = {{55}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}