A model for defining evacuation policies for emergency escape from buildings

¹ Operations Management Department, University of Oviedo, Gijón, Spain
² Civil Engineering Department, University of Oviedo, Gijón, Spain

Corresponding author: adenso@epsig.uniovi.es

Received: 30 October 2007
Accepted: 15 February 2008

Abstract

Over the last 10 years, the need to guarantee safety in the habitability of buildings has led to the development of different models (which are usually classified either as optimization, simulation, or risk assessment approaches) that help define how urgent evacuation of the building should take place in the event of a fire or any other circumstance that requires such a measure. This paper presents an optimization model embedded in a simulation model that enables the user to define which evacuation routes should be used to minimize the time needed to evacuate all occupants. The system is presented here along with an experimental framework designed to assess the quality of the proposed solutions and the system's performance with respect to different types of buildings. Results analysis show improvements around 9% of the time needed to evacuate a building, using an experimental framework that considers three main factors: type of building, number of exit doors and capacity flow in the corridors.