Research on the Evacuation Readiness of Bus Crews and Passengers - Investigation of the Effect of a New Type of Exit

This research was conducted to propose appropriate emergency exits for bus crews and passengers. We developed the improved emergency exit based on the results of current bus exit performance tests, and investigated its effect on evacuation readiness. Tests employing human subjects were conducted to measure the time required to evacuate using the improved emergency exit. The subjects' psychological responses during evacuation were also studied to identify any evacuation problems. We also carried out tests of group evacuation through windows in a current bus to obtain the relationship between the evacuation time, the number of evacuation subjects, and the number of windows.

The results show that the improved emergency exit is effective in improving evacuation readiness. It is clear that there is a positive correlation between the evacuation time, the number of subjects, and the number of windows.