Emergency escape

Building fires pose a significant threat, with approximately 1 in 60 buildings affected each year in the Netherlands alone. Efficient evacuation during a fire is paramount for saving lives. However, factors such as acute stress, chaotic crowd behaviors as well as complex and distracting environments often lead to life-threatening navigation errors. This research addresses the urgent need to develop a potential solution for improving emergency navigation that can effectively help both healthy as well as physically challenged individuals.

Approach

The research focuses on developing a behavioral framework to enhance exit safety in emergency situations; initially this will focus on fire escape. The goal is to develop a personalized system that can guide an individual towards safety. Among others, a goal of the project is to develop a personalized emergency escape application for smartphones. Each user creates a profile, that also takes into account their physical capabilities. However, beyond the technical challenges, for such a system to be used widely, the user has to trust the system and the potential for widespread adoption has to be evaluated. Once individuals trust the application to pick the safest route, navigation errors based on factors such as (un)familiarity with the environment or crowd behaviour may be avoided. In a first step, the behavioral framework is rigorously tested in a virtual reality environment, gaining insights into human behavior under stress and in complex settings. In a second step, smartphone-based field-tests will be conducted in a controlled environment. After field-testing another itteration cycle will start based on the obtained results.

Interested in hearing more about this line of research, want to collaborate or (if you are a student) write your thesis related to this research? Please contact Maximilian A. Friehs