2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Effect of Wording of Fire Warning Announcements on Evacuation Behavior in Subway Stations

Research Project

Project/Area Number	18560593
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Town planning/Architectural planning
Research Institution	Tokyo Institute of Technology
Principal Investigator	OHNO Ryuzo Tokyo Institute of Technology, Department of Built Environment, Professor (20160591)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	SOEDA Masashi Tokyo Institute of Technology, Department of Built Environment, Research Fellow (80323814)
Project Period (FY)	2006 – 2007
Keywords	evacuation behavior / warning announcement / subway station
Research Abstract	When the passengers in a subway station face to an emergency situation like a fire, they are expected to follow the station attendant to evacuate from hazardous areas. However, the number of station attendants in fact is quite limited. Considering people's typical behavior that they tend to follow the flow of crowds in an emergency situation, it is important to lead people to appropriate direction in an early stage of evacuation. This research thus investigates the efficiency of the announcement that is expected to guide the passengers. A series of experiments conducted in an existing subway station in Tokyo revealed that the announcement that considers the spatial features of the paths and sign system in the station may lead the subjects more smoothly than conventional one particularly in the cases when people have to once go down the stair to evacuate.