The Effects of Pre-Movement on Large Building Evacuations

Evacuation times for buildings with a range of heights and occupant loads were generated by a computer simulation algorithm, assuming simultaneous start. Additional evacuation times were generated for the same buildings with pre-movement times assigned to building occupants. Pre-movement times were assigned based on uniform and gamma distributions. Building evacuation times with pre-movement were compared to those without, to determine the quantitative effects of pre-movement. Using regression analysis, equations were generated to predict the effects of pre-movement for given building heights and occupant loads. Regression equations were shown to reasonably predict the effects of pre-movement for the building cases used for the regression analysis. Additional simulations were performed with and without pre-movement for buildings with alternative heights and occupant loads. The regression function was applied to these additional simulations, and found to predict the effects of pre-movement in these building cases with some accuracy.