Occupant evacuation elevators as a measure for crowd management and evacuation for people with mobility impairments in high-rise buildings

Fire evacuation in high-rise buildings has difficulties owing long-distance descent with few staircases, long evacuation times, and the congestion of evacuees. Additionally, evacuation measures for the elderly and people with mobility impairments are required. To solve these problems, an evacuation strategy in which able-bodied people and people with mobility impairments evacuate together with standard passenger elevators (EVs) without discrimination was proposed in this study. This strategy exploits typical architectural and EV configurations optimally designed for main building functions and daily transportation demands. The feasibility of this strategy was discussed through case studies of large-area rental office-type and mixed-use high-rise buildings. At a fire floor, to avoid excessive dependence on the boarding control of emergency service personnel, intensive EV service was proposed. By reducing the waiting time, evacuees are expected to be sober-minded when entering the EVs or staying on the floors. For the evacuation of the non-fire floors, the EV capacities are insufficient. In this case, able-bodied evacuees are encouraged to use the staircases, and occupants in the other zones are encouraged to wait or evacuate with EVs to prevent merging in the staircases. This guiding method using signage and voice alarm system was also discussed.