Auditory marking of escape ways in smoke
conference paper
Fire and smoke in a tunnel are dangerous because people get disoriented, blinded, and finally suffocate. When such a situation occurs (despite all precaution), sound beacons over the emergency exits could be a great help, reducing escape time through smoke. We let human participants "find refuge" from a road tunnel in dense (cosmetic) smoke. With "shussing" beacons, we obtained 20% success when there was no advance instruction and no demonstration. Advance instruction and demonstration raised the success rate to 69%. The paper reports new tests (with new participants) with "speaking" beacons. A success rate of 87% was obtained even without advance instruction and without demonstration. Walking speed was almost twice as fast as in the test with shussing beacons. The Dutch tunnel authorities were pleased with the results, and plan to introduce speaking beacons, as of 2006.
TNO Identifier
15898
Source title
International Symposium on Design, Construction and Operation of Long Tunnels, Taipei, Taiwan, 7-10 November 2005
Collation
6 p.
Pages
657-662
Files
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