Assessing school evacuation movement characteristics: Children and adolescents speed and flow over stairs and through exit doorways

The available theories of evacuation movements are primarily founded on data gathered from adults, making them potentially unsuitable for children, especially in schools.
Consequently, it is necessary to undertake further research to collect data on how children move during evacuations to understand their unique characteristics and disparities compared to adults. In this context, this paper aimed to explore the movement of
school children and adolescents as they moved over stairs and through exit doorways
during evacuations. The evacuation drill involved 295 school children and adolescents,
whose behavior was closely monitored using a series of cameras. During the drill, their
movement patterns, including flow and speed, were analyzed over stairs and through
doorways. The observations revealed that children exhibited frequent interactions and
contact with one another, unlike adults, who tend to maintain personal space. The findings of this study indicated that the average traveling speed over stairs was comparable
to previous research, although female adolescents had a lower average speed compared to other groups. The speed and flow of participants passing through doorways
were found to vary depending on their age and differed from estimates based on adult
data. This study highlights that existing evacuation models fall short of adequately
accounting for the dynamics of children, indicating the need for further research to
improve the generalizability of evacuation models.