Directive emergency evacuation procedures using Matlab

Abstract

This paper presents the development of directive emergency evacuation procedures for occupants of academic buildings. The development has four steps: determining a location as a starting point for evacuation, identifying the number of occupants in the building, referring to regulations and guidelines of emergency evacuation procedures, and designing an algorithm to be programmed in MATLAB software for desktop application. One academic building of the chemical and energy engineering faculty in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia is chosen to demonstrate the evacuation simulation. The algorithm is developed to direct occupants from any room in the building to a nearby assembly point. Occupants must provide inputs to the evacuation simulation, particularly the room's number and level. Based on the inputs, occupants will get a word-based direction to the assembly point within an estimated time. Fifty students demonstrated the use of an emergency evacuation simulation in MATLAB. They are provided feedback concerning their awareness of emergency evacuation and the interaction with the simulation. Half of them responded that the evacuation simulation in MATLAB and their satisfaction was good and excellent. However, the algorithm is for one potential hazard and its location at a time, making it incapable of having inputs for many hazards. It is recommended that the algorithm is programmed to be used on a smartphone, allowing much easier dynamic emergency calling.