A stochastic analysis on occupant evacuation time under emergency conditions

This paper presents a study on uncertainty of occupant evacuation time under emergency conditions. Some uncertainties influencing on emergency evacuation are analyzed based on three factors, namely emergency evolution dynamics, human behaviors under emergency conditions and environment. Fire emergency condition is presented as case study. Uncertainty of fire detection and alarm time is studied with consideration of lognormal fire growth rates and other random variables. The sum of pre-movement and movement time is simulated by considering different normal pre-movement time. Finally, stochastic analysis on occupant evacuation time is analyzed by coupling uncertainty of fire detection, alarm, pre-movement and movement time. The results show that occupant evacuation time is a variable especially influenced by a large number of uncertainties.