Studie: Evakuering og alkohol

Vi har publiceret og er i gang med at publicere. Resultaterne er fomidlet på konferencer i Danmark og intrnational.

Large nightclub fires involving people with alcohol related impairments and causing many fatalities, have occurred in the past decades. Knowledge on the evacuation characteristics of alcohol-affected people is relevant for fire safety design and for maintaining the safety level in the nightclubs. People affected by alcohol or drugs can be considered to be temporarily impaired, with respect to mobility, reaction time, sight, awareness and cognition. Literature gives only limited information on the evacuation behaviour of people with temporary disabilities and even less information is found on alcohol related impairments. The aim of the current study is to determine the effect of the impairment of alcohol on the evacuation of people. Four experiments were carried out with the support of TRYGFONDEN. Questionnaires accompanied all experiments document and induce the participant’s reflection on evacuation situations. The experiments are progressive: 1. The first was a pilot study, where Fatal Vision® Impairment Goggles were applied, simulating different levels of alcohol studying behavior and walking speeds involving 20 participants. The results influenced the setup of experiments 2 and 3. 2. A large experiment involving 94 participants was carried out. In the experiment Fatal Vision® Impairment Goggles studying behavior and walking speeds of the participants. 3. An experiment involving 30 participants was carried out. Beer donated by Carlsberg was used to study the behavior and walking speeds of the participants influenced by alcohol. The results provided wolking speeds and behavioral characteristics. The latter indicated a gap of knowledge on the behaviour in the reaction and decision time and led to the last experiment. 4. Reaction time of people affected by alcohol, with. 1 the pilot study The result of the pilot study involved 20 participants using Fatal Vision® Impairment Goggles provided by Fatal Vision®. The study showed that the visual impairment simulating alcohol intake affects the evacuation characteristics, such as velocities and behavior. It was seen that the walking speed decreases with simulated BAC level. This led to the following series of experiments. 2 and 3 evacuation characteristics restricted to the visual impairment simulating alcohol intake and evacuation characteristics of alcohol intake The study is divided into two large-scale evacuation experiments. The first experiment is carried out using equipment inducing solely the visual impairment of alcohol. In order to simulate that the participants are affected by alcohol, the participants were equipped with special Fatal Vision® Impairment Goggles provided by Fatal Vision®. In the second experiment the participants consume alcohol, which is Carlsberg Pilsner sponsored by Carlsberg. During the two experiments, several evacuation tests were carried out and the data is recorded using video footage. The recorded data includes: free walking speed, relation between walking speed and person density, reaction time and balance, observation of the human behaviour and the social interaction between the participants. Based on the results in this study it can be concluded that the consumption of alcohol affects evacuation characteristics. Therefore it is necessary to take this fact into account when designing buildings such as nightclubs where people are often strongly affected by alcohol. The results regarding the free walking speed in both of the experiments were that the walking speed is reduced. When wearing the goggles the free walking speed is reduced, the speed reduction is the same no matter the BAC level of the goggles. But in the experiments where people have consumed alcohol the free walking speed decreases when increasing the BAC level. The study shows that the relation between walking speed and person density changes due to the influence of both the goggles and of alcohol. But the conclusions from the two experiments are very different: In the experiment with goggles the walking speed is reduced compared with the reference sample. It is found that alcohol has the exact opposite effect on the pace of the participants. Their walking speed is increased compared to the reference and the participants tend to be more daring. From the results in both experiments it is seen that the walking speed is inversely proportional to person density. In the results there is a tendency, which indicates that the more influenced people were the less effect does person density have on the walking speed. Furthermore, in the goggle experiment a walking speed higher than 0 m/s was seen for person density higher than 3.75 pers/m2. The goggles induce vision impairment while alcohol induces a cognitive and social impairment. During the experiment regarding alcohol, there is a change in the behaviour of the participants. After the participants have consumed the beers they were very hard to control and organize. It was hard to make them take in information and follow instruction, a feature, that is crucial during evacuation and especially at the early stages. Furthermore, it was observed that the participants turned more social after consuming alcohol. The noise level increased. Walking speeds are published and presented at international conference. A journal paper is in the process of publication. 4 reaction and decision time of evacuees The aim of the 4th study is to investigate how consummation of alcohol impacts the reaction and decision (pre movement) phase of an evacuation. The study is based on a large scale evacuation experiment. The experiment consists of two reference experiments and two similar experiments conducted under the influence of alcohol. The experiments was designed so the participants would be exposed to two different warning methods, one being a spoken message in a room without music present and the other a tone alarm replacing the music present in the room. During the different experiments the participants were asked to do small assignments to see if they could maintain their focus on the assignments and how they evacuated when warned in different scenarios. The composition of the participants consisted of students from the Technical University of Denmark with an average age of 22.5 years. It was the same composition who conducted the reference and experiment with alcohol. The experiments were conducted in a four hour period on a Friday afternoon and had 30 participants. Based on the results in this study it can be concluded that there was found no significant different in the reaction and decision (pre movement) time when the participants were influenced by alcohol. However, there was found a difference in the behavior and ability to maintain focus on the assignments, when under the influence of alcohol. The drinking culture cognition of the population can be expected to affect the results. It is therefore important to have these factors in mind when using the results from this study to gain a better understanding on how alcohol impacts the reaction and decision (pre movement) time and behavior during evacuation. The results are to be presented at the Nordic Fire & Safety Days 2017.

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