Pedestrian behavior during evacuation from road tunnel in smoke condition - Empirical results

Five evacuation experiments were performed in a road tunnel in order to test how pedestrians react when exposed to reduced visibility, how the decision making process is carried out, and finally what is the impact of various circumstances like: different level of smokiness, competitive behavior or learning effect on an evacuation process. In four experiments pedestrians were exposed to artificial, non-toxic smoke. During evacuation of a group of people gathered in low and moderate level of smokiness (when Cs < 0.5m(-1)) we observed multi-line patterns created by pedestrians. Decision making was engaged in only by the first group of passengers, while under heavy smokiness Cs > 0.7m(-1) we have observed decision making by small groups and characteristic double-lines patterns. In four experiments the same group of participants was involved, and a learning effect was observed: increasingly shorter pre-movement time and decreasing time required to leave the main tunnel. We show, that movement speed in smoke is influenced by the evacuees' attitude and familiarity with environment and evacuation procedures and not only by the visibility level.