Evacuation tests with elevated platforms in railway tunnels
2019 (English)In: Fire safety journal, ISSN 0379-7112, E-ISSN 1873-7226, Vol. 108, article id 102840Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
With the purpose to increase the knowledge on human behaviour when evacuating along elevated platforms, an experiment was carried out at the subway station of Skarpnäck, Stockholm, in October 2016. The overall project objective was to develop basic data for guidelines regarding fire safety design concerning evacuation along elevated platforms. The experiment was designed as a group experiment divided into five different scenarios. In total, 111 persons of mixed gender and age participated. The results from the experiment show that the flow rate along the elevated platform decreased as the walkway was getting narrower. It could also be seen that along the first half of the walkway, where a train was located on the rail track next to the elevated platform, the flow rate was higher and the width of the walkway was used to a lager extent compared to the second half of the walkway where the platform was open to the track area. One of three wheelchair users who participated in the experiment expressed discomfort caused by the height and the width of the walkway and nearly half of the participants experienced problems with passing others walking slower than themselves.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier Ltd , 2019. Vol. 108, article id 102840
Keywords [en]
Behavioral research, Fires, Subway stations, A-train, Fire safety designs, Human behaviours, Project objectives, Rail tracks, Railway tunnels, Stockholm, Wheelchair users, Railroads
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-39920DOI: 10.1016/j.firesaf.2019.102840Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85071578399OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-39920DiVA, id: diva2:1352814
Note
Funding details: Trafikverket; Funding text 1: The project was initiated and financed by the Swedish Transport Administration . The study was a cooperation between RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Brandskyddslaget . RISE was responsible for planning, performing and evaluating the experiment. This work has been carried out as a grant research project and no agreements existed that could have influenced the project results. The Swedish Transport Administration – being both the initiator of the project as well as one of the end users – has however participated in early experiment discussions.; Funding text 2: This study was a part of the project “Elevated platforms in railway tunnels”. The project was a cooperation between RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Brandskyddslaget. The authors would like to thank The Swedish Transport Administration for initiating and financing this project and thereby making it possible to increase the knowledge within this research area. The experiment was performed with support from MTR Nordic AB (MTR), Stockholm Public Transport (SL) and Stockholm Greater Fire Brigade (SSBF). The authors would like to thank these organisations that made the full-scale tests possible to perform. Karl Fridolf, former colleague to the authors, was the initiator of the project, performed the literature study and performed a pilot experiment that formed a base for the full-scale tests. Karl Fridolf should therefore be especially thanked for his contribution. Many others have also helped during the preparation or performance of the full-scale tests and special thanks should be directed to fire engineer Per Rohlén who, as always, provided the authors with valuable photos and thoughts. Appendix A
2019-09-192019-09-192023-05-25Bibliographically approved