The application of Greenberg’s Model Modification for Estimating the Evacuation Time of People from Public Utility Buildings

Abstract

Objective: The article presents a proposition of a model for estimating people’s evacuation time from public utility buildings of category ZL III (not containing rooms designed for the simultaneous presence of more than 50 people who are not their regular users, not primarily intended for use by people with limited mobility). The model is based on the analogy between the theory of road traffic and the process of people’s movement during evacuation. Design and methods: In order to develop the model, a series of trial evacuations of people from public utility category ZL III buildings of varied geometry and number of users was conducted. A comparative analysis was performed concerning the evacuation times calculated with the use of models available in literature – a critical model of evacuation time, models designed by Togawa, Melenik and Booth, Galbreath, Pauls, methodology of the British Standard, and those derived from computer simulations performed with the use of the Pathfinder software. Based on the analysis of the conducted research and model considerations, an equation for the estimation of evacuation time was proposed based on a modified Greenberg’s equation derived from the road traffic theory. In the model modification, the concept of replacement length of evacuation route elements was applied, significantly slowing down people’s movement velocity, and a method for calculating them was proposed. Results: The evacuation times obtained in experimental research were compared to the model time values calculated from the models published in literature. A considerable dispersion of the achieved results was shown, ranging from –65.0% to +425.8% with respect to the evacuation times obtained experimentally. The performance of computer simulations brought evacuation times with a bias ranging from –54.4% to +26.0% with respect to the experiments conducted. Evacuation times calculated with the use of the proposed equation were in line with the experimental results with an error ranging from –12.3% to +13.8%. However, in comparison to the times obtained from additional computer simulations, representing the description of evacuation from buildings with highly varied geometry and various numbers of evacuees, the deviation of the calculated evacuation time from the proposed model was from –16.7% to +23.1%. In the vast majority of cases, the deviation of the result oscillated around ± 15% for a wide range of buildings’ geometry and the number of evacuees. Conclusions: The proposed model makes it possible to determine with sufficient accuracy the evacuation time of people from public utility buildings of category ZL III and can serve as a reliable source of comparative information.