A Review of Building Evacuation Models - NIST Virtual Library

Use of fire data: None.
Output: The output for the model is the following in min:
• Horizontal and stair travel time – this includes the time for a person to traverse all stair and
horizontal paths without queuing.
• Time required to pass all occupants through the building exit doors – the time for the entire
population to pass through the exit doors
• Time required to pass all occupants through the building stair exit doors.
Import CAD drawings: No. The user enters the capacity of the nodes and the initial contents.
Building data is not necessarily supplied because the dynamic capacity (flow) and the traversal
times specified in the input move people throughout the building at evacuation time progresses.
Visualization capabilities: None.
Validation studies: None known of at this time.
Special features:
Disabilities/slow occupant groups - The user can input the speed of the slowest evacuee as a
percentage of an able evacuee’s speed.
Route choice of the occupants/occupant distribution – Most efficient
Limitations: There are many assumptions made by the model. These assumptions are the
following: the most efficient exit paths are chosen, no actions such as investigation, wayfinding,
etc. are incorporated, flow is ideal without congestion, and there is no adjustment to
flow speed due to density. Nelson notes that it is reasonable to expect evacuation times that are
two to three times greater than the nominal evacuation time obtained from FPETool 2 .
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