Ascending stair evacuation: what do we know?

During ascending evacuation in long stairs, there is reason to believe that factors such as physical exhaustion, human behaviour and the mental state will influence the possibility of satisfactory evacuation and affect walking speed and flow rate of people. Based on these hypotheses, a research project was initiated. As a part of the project, an initial literature study has been conducted. The literature study has made an attempt to summarize the most important findings of previous research about physical exhaustion and design of stairs for ascending evacuation in long stairs. This paper presents the findings from the literature study. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.