Examining Children’s and Youth’s Flow through a Bottleneck

Abstract

Children and adults may have different evacuation  capability. Evacuation capability is most often examined  with adult participants. However, it would be important to know, how the children’s and youth’s evacuation capability  differs from that determined based on data from adult  population. The flow rate is one of the elements of the  evacuation capability. During the evacuation calculation,  the flow rate is considered with a single fixed value in the  current Fire Protection Safety Guideline. There is no  different value for children and adults. The safety of people  in the building depends on whether the building can be  evacuated as long as the living conditions are given inside  the building. The author has examined the evacuation capability of children, which is summarised in this article.  The author has examined one aspect of evacuation  capability, which is the flow rate through a bottleneck. Although evacuation capability does not depend solely on  this. Examination of other factors of evacuating capability  may be the subject of further research. In this paper the  author reports on his observations and measurements  during the research and also presents the Hungarian and  international literature related with adult’s and children’s  flow rate through a bottleneck. This research provides an opportunity to see if it is worthwhile to establish a separate  value for the flow rate through a bottleneck to be used in  evacuation calculations for children and adults separately;  and it provides an opportunity to substantiate further  investigations.