Enhancing evacuation plans with a situation awareness system based on end-user knowledge provision

Sensors (Basel). 2014 Jun 24;14(6):11153-78. doi: 10.3390/s140611153.

Abstract

Recent disasters have shown that having clearly defined preventive procedures and decisions is a critical component that minimizes evacuation hazards and ensures a rapid and successful evolution of evacuation plans. In this context, we present our Situation-Aware System for enhancing Evacuation Plans (SASEP) system, which allows creating end-user business rules that technically support the specific events, conditions and actions related to evacuation plans. An experimental validation was carried out where 32 people faced a simulated emergency situation, 16 of them using SASEP and the other 16 using a legacy system based on static signs. From the results obtained, we compare both techniques and discuss in which situations SASEP offers a better evacuation route option, confirming that it is highly valuable when there is a threat in the evacuation route. In addition, a study about user satisfaction using both systems is presented showing in which cases the systems are assessed as satisfactory, relevant and not frustrating.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Artificial Intelligence*
  • Awareness*
  • Decision Support Techniques*
  • Disaster Planning / methods*
  • Disasters*
  • Emergency Shelter / methods*
  • Facility Design and Construction*