THE IMPACT OF EXIT INSTRUCTIONS AND NUMBER OF EXITS IN FIRE EMERGENCIES - A COMPUTER-SIMULATION INVESTIGATION

Research on emergency evacuation in situations threatened by fire sugg ests that an authoritative announcement of the need to evacuate and cl ear identification of available exits affect survival rates. Clear ins tructions remove much of the ambiguity that often leads actors to dela y exiting, thereby reducing crowding at the exits with which those inv olved are most familiar. Additional exits should also speed evacuation of all those seeking to leave. Using a computer simulation model of s ocial behavior in response to a fire alarm (fire bell), we conducted a n exercise in which we varied ambiguity (presence or absence of exit i nstructions) and number of available exits from a simulated room in wh ich 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 numb er of exits available have a positive effect on how many exit safely a s time passes. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.