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An Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions In Aircraft Evacuation Decisions

Follow everyone else. Where are the exits?. Go to nearest exit?. Are all the exits the same ?. An Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions In Aircraft Evacuation Decisions. Ed Galea, M. Togher and P.Lawrence Presented by Prof Ed Galea. Fire Safety Engineering Group

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An Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions In Aircraft Evacuation Decisions

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  1. Follow everyone else. Where are the exits? Go to nearest exit? Are all the exits the same ? An Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions In Aircraft Evacuation Decisions Ed Galea, M. Togher and P.Lawrence Presented by Prof Ed Galea Fire Safety Engineering Group University of Greenwich http://fseg.gre.ac.uk

  2. CONTENTS • Introduction • Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey • Questions and Main Results • Conclusions and Further Work

  3. INTRODUCTION • The most common type of aircraft is the narrow body single aisle aircraft used for short haul flights (e.g. B737, A320 etc). • Analysis of survivable accidents involving narrow body aircraft with 3 exits pairs, in which at least one exit from each pair was available found over 50% of passengers used the over wing exit. • During industry standard evacuation 90 s certification trial only 28% use the over wing exit. • Why do so many passengers use the over wing exit in accidents?

  4. INTRODUCTION • The Over Wing exit: • Is the smallest exit on the aircraft, • Most difficult to utilise, • Provides the slowest flow rate

  5. Follow everyone else. Where are the exits? Go to nearest exit? Are all the exits the same ? INTRODUCTION • The aim of this study is to: • Identify level of passenger knowledge concerning aircraft exits • Use this information to suggest why a disproportionably large number of passengers use over wing exits during emergencies • Important to understand why paxs overuse these exits: • Poor exit decisions can prove fatal • Improve safety briefing • Improve decision making capabilities in agent based evacuation models such as airEXODUS

  6. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey • What do passengers really know about aircraft layouts? • A total of 488 members of public were asked to complete a questionnaire • Only 457 were considered eligible – exclude those with no flight experience. • Questionnaire took 15-20 minutes to complete. • 16 multi-part questions focussing on narrow body aircraft. • 2 pilot trials conducted prior to launching main campaign.

  7. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey 16 questions • 1-5 Establishing participants basic flying experience

  8. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey 1-5 contd. Establishing participants basic flying experience

  9. Questions & Main Results Q6: How many exits would you find on this kind of aircraft? Ans: Correct 78% 357 participants Wrong 22% 102 participants Correct Answer : 316 (6 exits) or 41 (8 exits)

  10. Examples of incorrect exit locations --> Questions & Main Results Q6b: Please mark the approximate exit location/locations on the diagram using crosses? Ans: All correct locations 75% Incorrect locations 25% X X X X X X

  11. Questions & Main Results 7aAre all of the exits indicated approximately the same size? Ans: CorrectDifferent sizes37% 172 participants WrongSame size63%287 participants

  12. Questions & Main Results Q 7b Please indicate on the diagram which exits are large and which are small. Ans: Correct 22% 99 participants Wrong78%360participants • Results clearly indicate poor configurational awareness of the aircraft. • Potentially a contributory factor in poor exit selection decisions made by passengers in emergency situations. L S L L L S

  13. Questions & Main Results • Frequent fliers believe they have good aircraft knowledge. • Compare survey results for sub-populations based on flying experience. • Sub-populations consist of people who have flown in • Past 12 months • Not in past 12 months • Frequent fliers – flown past 12 months • Infrequent fliers - flown past 12 months • Frequent fliers defined as those participants who have flown 5 or more return trips in past 3 years.

  14. Questions & Main Results

  15. Questions & Main Results • Just under a quarter 23% (84) of “people flown in the past 12 months” had a good understanding of aircraft layout • (number, location and relative sizes of exit pairs) • Having flown recently does not imply a better understanding of the aircraft exit layout and configuration when compared with those not flown recently. • Being a recent frequent flyer implies a significantly better understanding of the aircraft exit layout and configuration when compared with being a recent infrequent flyer. • However, only 27% of recent frequent flyers knew the number, location and relative sizes of three exit pairs.

  16. Questions & Main Results • Results of great concern as they suggest that a little more than 25% of most experienced frequent fliers understand the aircraft layout and configuration. • This inherent lack of exit knowledge is likely to have a negative impact on overall evacuation efficiency and hence passenger safety. • From a general view of passenger safety, must provide passengers with basic information concerning aircraft configuration • better briefing and better safety cards • Improving affordance of exits – e.g. through light halos • Introducing back of seat video information concerning aircraft layout and using inducements such as frequent flyer miles. • From an evacuation modelling view, results suggest that the majority of passengers (approx75%) have poor inherent exit knowledge. • Agent based decision models used to select which exit an agent may decide to use must reflect this lack of exit knowledge. • Factors such as opportunistically “seeing” an exit, following the crowd, following instructions or simply going to the nearest exit may be appropriate drivers for the majority of passengers/agents.

  17. Questions & Main Results Q8: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit A Exit B Don’t Know 72% 25% 3% A B 10 m 10 m

  18. Questions & Main Results Q9: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit A Exit B Don’t Know 68%23% 9% A B

  19. Questions & Main Results • Additional information concerning exit sizes provided to participant • The questions concerning preferred exit usage where re-administered. Large Small Large

  20. Questions & Main Results Q13: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit L Exit S Don’t Know 90% 7% 3% (+22%) (-16%) (-6%) L s

  21. Questions & Main Results • Q14 Participants were then asked to make an estimate concerning approx time required to pass through the small exit. • A quarter of the entire population (26% or 119 participants) thought that the smaller exit would allow them to pass through in approximately the same amount of time or quicker than the larger exit. • This result appears to be independent of flyer experience. S = ? sec L = 1 sec

  22. Questions & Main Results • Additional information concerning exit flow rates provided to participant • The questions concerning preferred exit usage where re-administered. S = 2 sec L = 1 sec L = 1 sec

  23. Questions & Main Results Q16: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit L Exit S Don’t Know 93% 5% 2% (+25%) (-18%) (-7%) L s

  24. Questions & Main Results

  25. Questions & Main Results • Before providing information to participants, on average, 39% (361) of entire population (459) would choose to use the centrally located smaller over wing exit rather than the larger forward /rear exits even when faced with a queue. • 39% • Being a recent frequent flyer (most experienced flyer), does not statistically alter this decision. • When provided with complete exit information, only 7% (32) of entire population (459) choose the smaller over wing exit. 7% ( - 32% difference) • Given sufficient information, travelling public can make sensible exiting decisions

  26. Conclusions & Further Work • Findings support hypothesis that poor understanding of cabin layout is a contributory factor to sub-optimal exit selection decisions made by passengers in emergency situations. • Results demonstrate that providing additional information concerning size and flow capabilities of exits greatly improves exit selection decisions - even for apparently knowledgeable participants. • Even providing information simply related to the relative size of the exits significantly improves exit selection capabilities. • Observations support the view that improving the nature of the pre-flight briefing, the affordance of exits and the safety cards provided on aircraft can improve evacuation efficiency. • For evacuation modelling perspective, these results suggest that as many as 39% of passengers will make sub-optimalexit selection decisions. • It is suggested that these poor exit decisions are due to poor understanding of the exit layout and performance capabilities. • These factors should be taken into consideration when developing agent decision models concerned with exit selection.

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