Tomonori Sano

Characteristics of merging occupants in a staircase

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of merges on crowds in a staircase and the ease of merging with variations in crowd density, directions of merge, and whether the door joining a hallway to a staircase was opened or closed. The results led to the following conclusions: 1) merging is easier at lower population density; 2) merging is easier if the direction of the merging crowd is same as the direction of the crowd in the staircase; and 3) merging is easier if the door is initially opened, and the evacuation speed is decreased by 30% when the door is initially closed.

Experimental Study of Crowd Flow Passing through Simple-shaped Room and Validation for an Evacuation Simulator

This paper describes the characteristics of crowd flow passing through simple-shaped rooms and to validate an evacuation simulation model called “SimTread”. It presents experiments on crowd flow with 43 subjects and intends to quantify the aspects of crowd flow in simple rooms. Recently, for estimating evacuation of buildings on fire, several computer simulation models have been developed and applied. However, human evacuation data-sets for validating simulation are scarce. The results of this study show that pedestrian flow rate at the opening changes depending on the density of the space connected. Flow rate rises if the opening is connected to larger space, which is less dense and, in result, increases speed of pedestrians. For validating an evacuation simulator, evacuation data from actual building fires are too complex for proving the equivalence. Therefore, we carried out the experiments of crowed flow passing through simpleshaped rooms, and compared experimental data with our simulation results. There was a good agreement between the result of experiments and simulations. The differences were less than 10%.

Modelling pedestrian merging in stair evacuation in multi-purpose buildings

Abstract Despite the total evacuation time of occupants in a multi-storey building not being affected by pedestrian merging on stairs, the calculation of evacuation times in each individual floor depends on the pedestrian merging ratio. In fact, different merging ratios may cause an evacuation to take place from the top to the bottom or vice versa. A simplified simulation model for the calculation of evacuation time at each floor is presented here. This model allows the investigation of the impact of two main variables affecting the evacuation time at each floor, namely 1) different initial numbers of pedestrians at each floor (i.e. occupant load), and 2) different merging ratios at each floor. This means that the model allows the calculation of the evacuation time at each floor considering a building with different occupancy types at different floors (e.g. office, residential, commercial, etc.) and different merging ratios which may be caused by a different configuration of the landing door at each floor. The model is presented in this paper using a case study of a hypothetical building. A detailed discussion on the model assumptions, advantages and limitations is also provided.

A STUDY ON THE EVALUATION CONSTRUCT OF SIGN AT THE STATION: A study on information provision method to station users focused on additional sign@@@追設サインに着目した駅利用者への情報提供手法に関する検討

So far, we have been conducting research to accumulate knowledge concerning information provision by the guide sign at the station, but in the current status it is possible to confirm the situation that useful measures are not yet applied to the sign at the terminal station. Therefore, in this research, we conducted an interview survey applying the Evaluation Grid Method which applies efficiently to the essential needs held by station users for additional signs, in order to realize an easy-to-understand guide sign.

The Visualization of Pedestrian Flow Efficiency with Interfering Area Model

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the pedestrian space with time series interfering area model. The model illustrates the interference of pedestrians area in the several directions. And the coordinates of pedestrians are sensed and used for evaluation of the space. The “time series interfering area model” describes the load between pedestrians in the several directions. This models advantage is as follows; (1) The characteristics of pedestrian loads in a time series are grasped and comprehended with it. (2) As the congestion in the observation area in a time series is observed, and the area is evaluated particularly. (3) The situations of intersecting pedestrians in the several directions are grasped.