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Investigating Evacuation Behaviour in Retirement Facilities: Case Studies from New Zealand

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Abstract

Ageing populations are generating new challenges for the safe design of buildings and infrastructure systems in communities around the world. Elderly building occupants are more likely to have mobility impairments, and in turn, require longer times and increased assistance to evacuate buildings compared with able-bodied adults. To date, only a few studies have been carried out to assess the evacuation performance of elderly evacuees in retirement homes. Therefore, it is necessary to collect critical evacuation data, such as pre-evacuation times and evacuation speeds, for these occupancy types.

This work investigates the evacuation behaviour of elderly evacuees and caretaking staff using video recordings of evacuation in retirement facilities. The paper presents three case studies. The first case study includes unannounced drills, which took place in communal areas of retirement homes during a live music exhibition and in a kitchen. The second case study is a series of unannounced drills, which took place in independent living apartment buildings of a retirement facility. The last case study is of a single announced evacuation drill, which took place in a communal area of a retirement building. Qualitative results indicate that the occupants’ behaviours depended on their role (i.e. resident or staff) and on the type of monitored area (i.e. apartment building or communal area). Pre-evacuation times measured in this study are in accordance with values stated in the literature, and walking speeds fall in the range of values reported in past studies of these types of building. Finally, results revealed that there is a significant gap between the data provided in this work and the SFPE design curves used for buildings, since the SFPE design curves do not explicitly account for adults with mobility impairments.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank SFPE NZ Chapter and Strategic Research Excellence Fund of Massey University for supporting this research and all the retirement facilities allowing the data collection. Further, we would like to thank Megan Van Standen and Danika Van den Heever for helping with the data collection and analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering and Structural Mechanics, University of Mons, Mons, Belgium

    A. Rahouti

  2. School of Built Environment, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    R. Lovreglio & F. Rothas

  3. Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    D. Nilsson

  4. School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    E. Kuligowski

  5. Evacuation Now Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand

    P. Jackson

  6. Fire Safety Consulting sprl, Ligny, Belgium

    A. Rahouti

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  1. A. Rahouti
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  2. R. Lovreglio
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  3. D. Nilsson
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  4. E. Kuligowski
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  5. P. Jackson
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  6. F. Rothas
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Correspondence to R. Lovreglio.

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Rahouti, A., Lovreglio, R., Nilsson, D. et al. Investigating Evacuation Behaviour in Retirement Facilities: Case Studies from New Zealand. Fire Technol 57, 1015–1039 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-020-01058-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-020-01058-x

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