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M. Oswald, N. Schjerve, C. Lebeda:
"Carriage Evacuations in local, public rail transportation systems in case of fire-Experiments, Findings and Human Behavior";
Talk: Advanced Research Workshop: Evacuation and Human Behavior in Emergency Situations, Universidad de Cantabria, Sandander; 2011-10-21; in: "Evacuation and Human Behavior in Emergency Situations", (2011), ISBN: 978-84-86116-46-0; 309 - 336.

This paper investigates the evacuation of passengers from different vehicles on track and in a (simulated) tunnel situation with a special focus on the exit height and the close geometry of the passage between the cars and the tunnel walls.

During the past five years several different evacuation experiments of train evacuation were performed by the Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Building Construction and Technology. These experiments cover two types of vehicles under different geometrical situations (i.e. exit heights) and different numbers of participants. These experiments are concerned with evacuation situations like evacuations from train on "track" to unlimited and limited lateral spaces or evacuation inside a train with smoke obscuration.

The main results and outcomes of the experiments are:
. The participants displayed 3 different types of exiting the train. These 3 types are classified as "Jumper", "Sider" and "Sitter". In average 45 % of the passengers adopted a jumping manoeuvre, 28 % were "Siders" and 27 % exited as "Sitters".
. No significant difference was determined for the flow rates at the doors for exit height 0.65 m and 1.0 m.
. The free flow rates at the doors are in the range of 0.9 persons/(m∙s) for evacuations into a free lateral space down to 0.25 persons/(m∙s) in the tunnel situation (limited lateral space).

evacuation, train, evacuation experiment, human behavoir,