Exit choice in fire emergencies - Influencing choice of exit with flashing lights

by Nilsson, Daniel, PhD

Fire accidents and evacuation experiments have revealed that people often use familiar exits in fire emergencies. However, the design of emergency exits has also been shown to impact people’s choice of exit. In the present research, the use of flashing lights to direct people to emergency exits is explored in a series of experiments in both buildings and road tunnels. Recommendations concerning how the system should be designed are developed based on the results. In addition, a framework (Theory of Affordances) is used to explain and interpret the empirical findings and a research strategy for testing and developing evacuation systems is proposed.