The impact of exit instructions and number of exits in fire emergencies : a computer simulation investigation.

Reprinted from Journal of environmental psychology; 1997; v. 17; p. 123-133

Research on emergency evacuation in situations threatened by fire suggests that an authoritative announcement of the need to evacuate and clear identification of available exits affect survival rates. Clear instructions remove much of the ambiguity that often leads actors to delay exiting, thereby reducing crowding at the exits with which those involved are most familiar. Additional exits should also speed evacuation of all those seeking to leave. Using a computer simulation model of social behavior in response to a fire alarm, an exercise was conducted in which varied ambiguity (presence or absence of exit instructions) and number of available exits from a simulated room in which a fire alarm had sounded. The Monte Carlo model emphasizes how the changing responses of those surrounding an individual or bonded pair influence probabilistically changes in the behavior of that individual or pair. Both absence of ambiguity (evacuation instructions) and number of exits available have a positive effect on how many exit safely as time passes