NIST Technical Note 1839 

Movement on Stairs During Building 

Evacuations 

Erica D. Kuligowski 

Richard D. Peacock 

Paul A. Reneke 

Emily Wiess 

Charles R. Hagwood 

Kristopher J. Overholt 

Rena P. Elkin 

Jason D. Averill 

Enrico Ronchi 

Bryan L. Hoskins 

Michael Spearpoint 

This publication is available free of charge from:

http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1839 

 
NIST Technical Note 1839 

Movement on Stairs During Building 

Evacuations 

Erica D. Kuligowski 

Richard D. Peacock 

Paul A. Reneke 

Emily Wiess 

Kristopher J. Overholt 

Rena P. Elkin 

Jason D. Averill 

Fire Research Division 

Engineering Laboratory 

Charles R. Hagwood 

Statistical Engineering Division

Information Technology Laboratory

Enrico Ronchi 

Lund University 

Lund, Sweden 

Bryan L. Hoskins 

Oklahoma State University 

Stillwater, OK

Michael Spearpoint 

University of Canterbury 

Christchurch, New Zealand 

This publication is available free of charge from 

http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1839 

January 2015 

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Penny Pritzker, Secretary 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

Willie May, Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Acting Director 
Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this 

 document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. 

Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the 

National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the 

entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose. 

National Institute of Standards and Technology Technical Note 1839 

Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Tech. Note 1839, 213 pages (January 2015) 

This publication is available free of charge from: 

http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1839

CODEN: NTNOEF 
iii 

Abstract 

The time that it takes an occupant population to reach safety when descending a stair during 

building evacuations is typically estimated by measureable engineering variables such as stair 

geometry, speed, stair density, and pre-observation delay. In turn, engineering models of 

building evacuation use these variables to predict the performance of egress systems for building 

design, emergency planning, or event reconstruction. As part of a program to better understand 

occupant movement and behavior during building emergencies, the Engineering Laboratory at 

the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been collecting stair movement 

data during fire drill evacuations of office and residential buildings. These data collections are 

intended to provide a better understanding of this principal building egress feature and develop a 

technical foundation for future codes and standards requirements. NIST has collected fire drill 

evacuation data in 14 buildings (11 office buildings and 3 residential buildings) ranging from six 

to 62 stories in height that have included a range of stair widths and occupant densities. A total 

of more than 22000 individual measurements are included in the data set. 

This report provides details of the data collected, an analysis of the data, and examples of the use 

of the data. The intention is to better understand movement during stair evacuations and provide 

data to test the predictive capability of building egress models. 

While mean movement speeds in the current study of 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s are observed to be 

quite similar to the range of values in previous studies, mean local movement speeds as 

occupants traverse down the stairs are seen to vary widely within a given stair, ranging from 

0.10 m/s ± 0.008 m/s to 1.7 m/s ± 0.13 m/s. These data provide confirmation of the adequacy of 

existing literature values typically used for occupant movement speeds and provide updated data 

for use in egress modeling or other engineering calculations. 

Keywords: Disabled, egress, egress modeling, evacuation, fire safety, human behavior, mobility 

impairments 
iv 

Executive Summary 

The time that it takes an occupant population to reach safety when descending a stair during 

building evacuations is typically estimated using measureable engineering variables such as stair 

geometry, speed, stair density, and pre-observation delay. In turn, engineering models of 

building evacuation use these variables to predict the performance of egress systems for building 

design, emergency planning, or event reconstruction. As part of a program to better understand 

occupant movement and behavior during building emergencies, the Engineering Laboratory at 

the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been collecting stair movement 

data during fire drill evacuations of office and residential buildings. These data collections are 

intended to provide a better understanding of this principal building egress feature and develop a 

technical foundation for future codes and standards requirements. 

Chapter 2 includes a review of previous studies of occupant movement during building 

evacuations. At least three key features of these studies influenced the current study. First, much 

of the literature data is several decades or more old. There has been considerable discussion on 

the applicability of the older data with the assumption that current populations would be slower 

than that represented by the older data. Newly-collected data can be compared with historical 

data partly to assess the applicability of historical data to current building populations. Second, 

the literature data include only buildings up to 21 stories in height. Taller buildings were of 

particular interest. The buildings selected for study included a wide range of building heights. 

Finally, none of the literature studies include data beyond mean values or ranges of values. With 

more sophisticated egress models under development, this study endeavors to provide detailed 

data for model development and validation. 

This project provides a freely available set of raw data on evacuation-related people movement 

on stairs in the United States. The data of people movement on stairs consist of the times that 

each individual is observed by every video camera in every stair in every building observed by 

NIST (14 buildings total). Within the dataset, 11 of the 14 buildings were office buildings, and 3 

buildings were residential. Of the residential buildings, two of the buildings (with a total of 172 

evacuees) were exclusively labeled as assisted living facilities or elderly housing, which 

provided valuable evacuation timing data for people with mobility impairments and elderly 

occupants. A total of 5244 people (at a total of 173 camera locations) were observed over the 14 

NIST-observed buildings, which ranged from 6 to 62 stories in height. A total of more than 

22000 individual measurements are included in the data set. 

This report provides details of the data collected, an analysis of the data, and examples of the use 

of the data. The intention is to better understand movement during stair evacuations and provide 

data to test the predictive capability of building egress models. 

Measurements and Data Collection

In this study, data from fire drill evacuations were collected by positioning video cameras out of 

the way of building occupants to record an overhead view of occupant movement in an exit stair 

during an evacuation. In most cases, video cameras were placed on specific floors throughout the 
v 

building to capture a view of that floor’s main landing, the door into the stair at that level, and 2-

6 steps on each side of the main landing (leading to and from the main landing). This camera 

placement captured the times in which the occupant was seen moving past a particular floor 

landing as well as the time when he/she was seen moving into the stairs. Video cameras were 

placed at least every other floor, sometimes every floor, in each stair, with the exception of 

Building 6. Since Building 6 was a 62-story building, the number of cameras available for 

observation made it impossible to place cameras on every other floor in all four stairs. Therefore, 

cameras were placed nominally every 6 floors throughout each stair. Details of camera 

placement are available in section 3.1 and Appendix A. Data obtained from the video records 

included timing of each occupant as he/she entered and left every camera view and additional 

data such as the occupants location on the stairs and handrail usage. Finally, overall 

characteristics of the occupants such as gender, body size, floor of origin, whether he/she was 

carrying anything during evacuation, and whether he/she was assisting or being assisted by 

someone during the evacuation, were also obtained. 

Along with the movement timing, stair geometry including distance travelled on the stairs and 

landings, stair widths, stair tread depth, stair riser height, and landing size were measured in all 

of the buildings to allow calculation of delay moving to the stairs for evacuation, stair movement 

speed, density, and flow. 

The data collected and analyzed from these stairs, available on the NIST website at 

http://www.nist.gov/el/ fire_research/egress.cfm, is a primary output of this research and is 

intended as a resource for engineers and model developers. 

Pre‐Observation Delay

Pre-observation delay was defined for each occupant as the time from the initial alarm until the 

occupant was seen entering the stair to evacuate the building. Across 30 stairs, the mean preobservation delay of occupants was 230 s ± 53 s. Able-bodied participants had a mean time of 

160 s ± 11 s before evacuating into the stairwell. The lowest delays occurred in building 12, with 

stairwell 12A occupants initiating evacuation after 35 s and 12B after 34 s. The quick pace could 

be attributed to low overall building population and building height as well as pre-announced 

evacuations. Stairs with mobility-impaired occupants began to evacuate after a longer period of 

time, 850 s ± 430 s. These facilities would normally have had higher delays than stairs with ablebodied occupants, having to wait for fire fighter rescue. Evacuees in Building 10, an assistedliving facility, had the longest delay at 1708 s. The extensive delay within the assisted living 

facility can be explained by the placement of several participants in stair descent devices before 

evacuation. Firefighters who assisted evacuees often had to spend additional time setting up the 

device and ensuring that the occupant was safe and comfortable. Section 4.3 discusses preobservation delay. 

Movement Speed

Overall movement speed for each occupant was determined from the total travel distance (from 

where he/she entered the stair to the exit at the bottom of the stairwell) divided by the difference 

between entry and exit times. For mean speeds and associated uncertainties, this report uses the 
vi 

harmonic mean which is more appropriate for means that involve averaging travel over different 

distances. Appendix B includes details of the calculation of mean speeds and their associated 

uncertainties. Local speeds represent the speeds of evacuees between camera observation points 

in successive camera views. Section 5.1 discusses occupant speed and density during stair 

evacuation. 

Overall speeds varied from 0.07 m/s to 1.71 m/s with a mean of 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s1. The range 

encompassing observations in this study overlaps with the movement speeds found in previous 

studies. The mean local speeds varied widely within and among stairs, ranging from 0.10 m/s 

± 0.008 m/s to 1.7 m/s ± 0.13 m/s. Individual local movement speeds ranged from 0.06 m/s to 

2.8 m/s. 

Variable Sample Size        Mean ± Std. Error Median

Pre‐observation delay time (s) 5249 230 ± 53 170

Overall Speed (m/s) 5244 0.44 ± 0.19 0.47

Peak Density (persons/m2) 21303 1.87  ± 0.16 2.04

The flow of occupants out the exit door at the bottom of the stairs was seen to be dependent 

largely on the number of occupants using the stair and the height of the building. The following 

correlation was found to fit the data with an R2 of 0.88: 

1

3

0.42 total

ave

exit

P F

D

      

where Fave is the mean flow out the exit door in persons/s, Ptotal is the total number of people 

using the stair, and Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by people using the stair. This 

correlation was found to work well for the middle 90 % of those exiting the stairs. 

In all stairs, there were a small number of outliers who evacuated early and late in the 

evacuation. These were estimated to add an average of 22 % to the total evacuation time for a 

building with a range as high as 61 %. Section 5.3 discusses occupant flow and the impact of 

early and late evacuees. The table below shows the fraction of the total evacuation time it takes 

for the early and late evacuees. On average, the early and late evacuees each account for about 

20 % of the total stair evacuation time with a wide range for both. Thus, estimation of evacuation 

time must include an initial pre-evacuation time (time taken by the early evacuees to reach the 

stairwells), the time taken by the bulk of the evacuees (time taken by the middle 90 % in the 

analysis in this report), and the added evacuation time for late evacuees. For the latter, a design 

margin is typically included in the estimates. Section 5.3 discusses occupant flow and the impact 

of early and late evacuees. 

 

1

 In this report, uncertainties represent one standard deviation, unless otherwise noted. 
vii 

   Fraction of Total Evacuation Time

   Mean Range

First 5 % 0.20 ± 0.12 0.03  ‐  0.46

Last 5 % 0.22 ± 0.18 0.01  ‐  0.61

Movement Speed for Mobility‐Impaired Occupants

Although egress calculations in egress models have been revised to incorporate various 

behaviors of able-bodied occupants, negligible amounts of egress movement data have been 

collected for the disabled. Two buildings (Buildings 9 and 10) in the current study were occupied 

exclusively by older, predominately mobility-impaired adults. Evacuees, whose movements and 

behavior were analyzed while descending the stairs, included those visually identified as older as 

well as individuals needing assistance from canes, walkers, stair travel devices, and/or other 

people (often staff or firefighters). 

Occupants evacuated Buildings 9 and 10 at a mean speed of 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s with a range 

from 0.07 m/s to 0.94 m/s. People assisted by staff members or another occupant evacuated at a 

mean speed of 0.24 m/s ± 0.13 m/s. Those assisted by firefighters had a mean speed of 0.14 m/s 

± 0.05 m/s. Individuals in stair travel devices travelled at a mean speed of 0.20 m/s ± 0.04 m/s. 

The older population without any disabilities moved faster than the other groups at 0.35 m/s ± 

0.17 m/s. In some cases, speeds observed in the current study approximate the speeds of disabled 

people and older adults found in earlier studies, and in other cases were slower than previous 

studies. Slower speeds may have resulted from observing a wider variety of mobility 

impairments (because one of the observed buildings was an assisted-living facility). In addition, 

the assistance to evacuees provided by untrained populations on the use of the stair descent 

devices, rather than trained populations. Section 5.2 details the evacuation of mobility-impaired 

occupants in the current study. 

Parameters That Influence Occupant Movement

From regression modeling and Bayesian analysis of both the flow correlations (see section 5.3) 

and point process modeling (see section 5.4), the two most significant variables were the number 

of occupants using the stairs and the height of the building, with a clear regression between these 

variables and flow out the stairs at the exit door. 

Surprisingly, stair width did not have a statistically significant impact on occupant flow. Some of 

this may be simply because typical building design calls for increased stair capacity (typically by 

increased stair width) as floor population in the building increases. Another possible explanation 

for the contradiction in findings (on the effect of stair effective width) is the lack of variance in 

effective width among NIST-observed building samples. All of the buildings observed in this 

study were code-compliant buildings with effective stair widths ranging from 756 mm (29.75 in) 

to 1232 mm (48.5 in), with the majority (62 %) of stairs falling within the narrow range of 

729 mm (28.7 in) to 813 mm (32 in). 
viii 

Additional observation of tall buildings in the United States and experimentation in a laboratory 

setting of evacuations using a wider range of stair widths would be needed to increase the 

strength of the findings in this report and potentially provide concrete evidence of the benefits 

(or lack thereof) of incremental increases in stair widths. 

Techniques for Improved Egress modeling

In addition to providing additional data on occupant movement in stair egress, the report also 

included more detailed analysis of path selection and clustering. 

A detailed analysis of some of the data (see section 5.5) showed that both variation of movement 

speeds and path selection can be successfully described with a single parameter distribution for a 

base path. 

Sample comparisons of the data to an existing egress model (see section 5.6) demonstrate the 

usefulness of the data for model validation. These comparisons show that the level of detail in 

the model inputs can have a significant impact on the quality of the predictions. Additional 

analysis of the data would help better define the necessary range of inputs and their appropriate 

use in a range of egress models. 

Point process modeling was seen as a promising technique to quantitatively account for 

clustering of occupants during stair egress. Use of the Hawke’s point process model (see section 

5.4) showed a consistent measure of clustering in all of the stairs, regardless of crowding, stair 

width, door placement, etc. Additional study would be required to better understand its 

applicability to egress modeling. 

Additional Research Needs

This report provides just a beginning in understanding the additional human behavior-related 

factors that impact movement beyond classic hydraulic calculation-based variables. Additional 

research is needed to better understand these factors, including the following: 

 To fully understand overall exit times for building egress, a better understanding of 

movement and behavior of occupants prior to entering the stairs is required. This report 

presented a simple analysis of the time occupants take to arrive at the stair for egress. No 

data was collected in this study of occupant movements prior to entering the stairs. 

 Additional data on movement speeds, particularly in taller buildings and with various 

stair widths are needed to better understand the important variables that impact stair 

movement speeds. 

 Additional analysis of stair movement data to determine the best values and distributions 

for egress model inputs would facilitate modeling and help understand additional data 

needs through use of the data. 

 Additional analysis of stair movement data using the Hawke’s point process model would 

help clarify clustering in stair movement and its impact on occupant flow. 

 Further analysis is needed to fully understand whether fatigue occurs during building 

evacuations, and if so, the factors that impact fatigue, including distance traveled, age, 
ix 

physical ability, fitness level, etc. Additionally, if fatigue is present in certain conditions 

during building evacuations, it will be important to understand its impact on occupant 

movement speeds and flow. 

 Additional analysis of merging behavior is needed, including an understanding of the 

proportion of stair users versus occupants entering the stairs for a variety of building 

scenarios (i.e., building type, occupant type, scenario type, etc.). 

 Analysis of the evacuation timing of stairs versus elevators is needed, including the 

benefits of evacuation via elevators for different types and heights of buildings. 

 Data collection and analysis of behavioral data before and during stair evacuation as well 

as elevator evacuation is needed. This includes additional information on the movement 

of occupants with mobility impairments on stairs and other building egress components. 

 Since all of the analyses in this report are based on fire drill evacuations, additional 

research on the similarities or differences between these evacuations and real fire 

emergencies is needed to place the results in context. 

xi 

Table of Contents 

Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... iv

Measurements and Data Collection ........................................................................................... iv

Pre-Observation Delay ................................................................................................................ v

Movement Speed ........................................................................................................................ v

Movement Speed for Mobility-Impaired Occupants ................................................................ vii

Parameters That Influence Occupant Movement ...................................................................... vii

Techniques for Improved Egress modeling ............................................................................. viii

Additional Research Needs ...................................................................................................... viii

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... xi

Tables and Figures ....................................................................................................................... xiv

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................. 2

1.2 Report Organization ......................................................................................................... 2

2 Background and Previous Research........................................................................................ 4

2.1 Earlier Studies on Pre-evacuation Timing/Delays and Behavior ..................................... 5

2.1.1 Real Fire Incidents .................................................................................................... 5

2.1.2 Evacuation Studies .................................................................................................... 6

2.2 Earlier Studies on Stair Movement ................................................................................ 13

2.2.1 Actual Fires ............................................................................................................. 13

2.2.2 Fire Drills ................................................................................................................ 14

2.2.3 Normal Conditions .................................................................................................. 16

2.2.4 Laboratory Experiments .......................................................................................... 18

2.2.5 Behavioral Aspects ................................................................................................. 19

2.2.6 Summary ................................................................................................................. 20

2.3 Building Code Provisions on Stair Egress ..................................................................... 31

2.3.1 Determination of Stairway Capacity in the National Model Building Codes ........ 31

2.3.2 Usability Requirements in the National Model Building Codes ............................ 32

2.4 Egress modeling ............................................................................................................. 33

2.4.1 Analytical tools ....................................................................................................... 33

2.4.2 Simulation models .................................................................................................. 35
xii 

3 Experimental Data Collection and Methods ......................................................................... 41

3.1 Video Observation Procedures ....................................................................................... 41

3.2 Occupant Data from Video Records .............................................................................. 42

3.3 Stair Geometry Data ....................................................................................................... 45

3.4 Buildings Included in the Study ..................................................................................... 46

3.4.1 Building 1................................................................................................................ 50

3.4.2 Building 2................................................................................................................ 50

3.4.3 Building 3................................................................................................................ 51

3.4.4 Building 4................................................................................................................ 51

3.4.5 Building 5................................................................................................................ 52

3.4.6 Building 6................................................................................................................ 52

3.4.7 Building 7................................................................................................................ 53

3.4.8 Building 8................................................................................................................ 54

3.4.9 Building 9................................................................................................................ 54

3.4.10 Building 10.............................................................................................................. 55

3.4.11 Building 11.............................................................................................................. 56

3.4.12 Building 12.............................................................................................................. 56

3.4.13 Building 13.............................................................................................................. 57

3.4.14 Building 14.............................................................................................................. 58

4 Overall Results ...................................................................................................................... 59

4.1 Calculations .................................................................................................................... 59

4.1.1 Occupant Movement Timing .................................................................................. 59

4.1.2 Pre-Observation Delay ............................................................................................ 59

4.1.3 Travel Time ............................................................................................................. 59

4.1.4 Movement Speed .................................................................................................... 60

4.1.5 Density .................................................................................................................... 60

4.2 Summary of Data Collected ........................................................................................... 61

4.3 Pre-Observation Delay Time .......................................................................................... 63

4.4 Movement Speeds .......................................................................................................... 69

4.4.1 Overall Movement Speeds ...................................................................................... 70

4.4.2 Local Movement Speeds ......................................................................................... 73

5 Discussion and Analysis ....................................................................................................... 75

5.1 Comparison of Speed and Density Results with Literature Values ............................... 75

5.2 Stairwell Use by People with Disabilities ...................................................................... 76
xiii 

5.3 Flow on Stairs ................................................................................................................. 81

5.3.1 Early and Late Evacuees ......................................................................................... 81

5.3.2 Analysis of Flow ..................................................................................................... 83

5.4 Point Process Modeling of Egress Timing ..................................................................... 87

5.4.1 Important Parameters Influencing Occupant Egress ............................................... 88

5.4.2 Clustering of Occupants During Egress .................................................................. 95

5.5 Use of the Data for Detailed Analysis of Evacuee Movement .................................... 101

5.5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 101

5.5.2 Tracking Travel Paths ........................................................................................... 102

5.5.3 Tracking occupant walking speeds ....................................................................... 105

5.5.4 Tracking occupant usage of landing areas ............................................................ 107

5.6 Use of the Data to Inform Egress modeling ................................................................. 110

5.6.1 Network Model ..................................................................................................... 110

5.6.2 Representation of Agents in the Simulations ........................................................ 111

5.6.3 Representation of Stairs in Model......................................................................... 112

5.6.4 Effect of stair entry time ....................................................................................... 113

5.6.5 Baseline Results .................................................................................................... 115

5.6.6 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 120

5.7 Discussion of Results ................................................................................................... 120

6 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 122

6.1 Movement Speed .......................................................................................................... 122

6.2 Important Parameters that Effect Stair Egress ............................................................. 123

6.3 Techniques for Improved Egress modeling ................................................................. 124

6.4 Implications of the Data for Building Code Requirements .......................................... 124

6.5 Additional Research Needs .......................................................................................... 126

Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................... 128

References ................................................................................................................................... 129

Appendix A. Building Details ..................................................................................................... A-1 

Appendix B. Calculating Mean Movement Speeds .................................................................... B-1 

Appendix C. Local Travel Speeds ..............................................................................................C-1 

Appendix D. Parameter Estimation using Linear Least Squares and Bayesian Inference ........ D-1 

Appendix E. Point Process Modeling ......................................................................................... E-1 

 
xiv 

Tables and Figures 

Table 1. Summary of pre-evacuation time literature .................................................................... 10

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature ................................................................. 21

Table 3. Main features of egress models ...................................................................................... 38

Table 4. Buildings included in the current study .......................................................................... 47

Table 5. Overall Results for Occupant Evacuation in 30 Stairs ................................................... 63

Table 6. Results for occupant evacuation in 30 stairs divided between 

able-bodied and mobility-impaired evacuees ............................................................................... 63

Table 7. Summary of travel times, overall speeds, and peak density during stair evacuations in 14 

buildings. ....................................................................................................................................... 75

Table 8. Mean speeds on stairs for all evacuees and within various disability groups. 

(Uncertainties are one standard deviation from the mean.) .......................................................... 78

Table 9. Overall speeds on stairways for evacuees on stair travel devices 

from Buildings 9 and 10. .............................................................................................................. 79

Table 10. Impact of early and late evacuees on overall evacuation time 

for the thirty stairs included in the study. ..................................................................................... 83

Table 11. Values for 7 models determined using Bayesian inference and linear least squares. ... 85

Table 12. Maximum likelihood estimates for pre-observation times for each stairwell. ............. 89

Table 13. Maximum likelihood estimates for stair travel times for each stairwell. ...................... 90

Table 14. Building parameters that correlate with average intensity using LLS and Bayesian 

Inference ....................................................................................................................................... 92

Table 15. Building parameters that correlate with  determined by LLS and Bayesian inference

....................................................................................................................................................... 95

Table 16. Building parameter correlations with α from LLS and Bayesian inference ................. 99

Table 17. The results of fitting α in terms of β. Extra significant figures added to demonstrate the 

closeness of the results. ............................................................................................................... 100

Table 18. Table of distributions: percentage of occupants modeled, percentage with stair entry 

time ............................................................................................................................................. 114

Table 19. Summary of total evacuation time from selected fire drills compared to the range of 

total times from simulations........................................................................................................ 115

Figure 1. Major components of a building evacuation. .................................................................. 4

Figure 2. Typical stair landing showing camera view with entry locations for occupant 

movement timing from stairs above, stair entry door, and exit from camera view for one of the 

buildings in the study. ................................................................................................................... 41

Figure 3. Camera locations in stairs included in the study. Stair numbering includes the building 

number (assigned chronologically by NIST) and the stair number (A, B, N, S, 1, 2, etc.) as 

described in the building. .............................................................................................................. 43

Figure 4. Overview of camera view and landing / stair travel distance during stair evacuation 

observations. ................................................................................................................................. 46

Figure 5. Sample size in each stairwell included in the analysis. ................................................. 62

Figure 6. Pre-stairwell evacuation delay time during fire drill evacuations in 14 buildings. The 

median, represented by the black line, is encased around the middle 50 % of the data with the 

whiskers signifying the 10th and 90th percentile. The red circles denote outliers. ........................ 64
xv 

Figure 7. Distribution of pre-observation delay in stair evacuations with able-bodied occupants.

....................................................................................................................................................... 65

Figure 8. Distribution of residential pre-observation delay time in building fire drill evacuations 

with mobility-impaired occupants. ............................................................................................... 66

Figure 9. Comparison of mean (median) pre-stairwell evacuation time and stairwell 

travel time for 14 building fire drill evacuations. ......................................................................... 67

Figure 10. Comparison of pre-observation delay with total evacuation time for 14 building fire 

drill evacuations. ........................................................................................................................... 68

Figure 11. Comparison of travel time with total evacuation time for 14 building fire drill 

evacuations. ................................................................................................................................... 69

Figure 12. Stair travel speeds in 14 building fire drill evacuations. Shaded area represents the 

overall mean speed and standard deviation for all 30 stairs. ........................................................ 70

Figure 13. Distribution of stair movement speeds in buildings fire drill evacuations with ablebodied occupants. .......................................................................................................................... 72

Figure 14. Distribution of stair movement speeds in building fire drill evacuations with mobilityimpaired occupants. ...................................................................................................................... 73

Figure 15. Sample fraction of stair population evacuated as a function of time since building 

alarm ............................................................................................................................................. 82

Figure 16. Riser height vs. occupant type flag (1 - non-residential, 2 - residential) ..................... 94

Figure 17. Fundamental relationship between branching ratio and average intensity with data 

from 31 stair evacuation travel times. ........................................................................................... 97

Figure 18. Point process intensity compared to stair density. Note quadratic form consistent with 

current relationship between flow and density. ............................................................................ 98

Figure 19. β vs. α and the linear fit. ............................................................................................ 100

Figure 20. Example of the video analysis method for a stair landing. ........................................ 104

Figure 21. Schematic representation of the occupants. Point A represents the point used as 

reference for the reconstruction of the trajectories (the middle point between the feet). ........... 104

Figure 22. Complete sample of PTP lengths (black bars) against data presented compared to the 

additional number of people in the landings (grey bars). The x axis is the same in the four graphs 

and it represents the relative differences of the experimental path paths (h) and reference travel 

paths. The percentages indicate the intervals of relative differences to the reference paths. ..... 105

Figure 23. PWS (expressed in %) in relation to the number of occupants in the landing (condition 

1). Walking speeds are indicated within the intervals where the speeds (x in the figure axis) fall.

..................................................................................................................................................... 107

Figure 24. Occupants are modelled as ellipses of fixed dimensions. ......................................... 108

Figure 25. Reconstruction of the area occupied by one occupant within a CAD tool. ............... 108

Figure 26. Example of 2D and 3D representation of PEA (expressed in percent) for all occupants 

of the two stairs in building 12. .................................................................................................. 109

Figure 27. Sample stair geometry and representation as a series of nodes and arcs ................... 113

Figure 28. Measured stair entry delay times and derived Weibull distribution for Building 4. . 114

Figure 29. Total evacuation times from selected drills compared with EvacuatioNZ predictions 

(mean values with uncertainties expressed as one standard deviation. maximum and minimum 

times are shown by range bars). .................................................................................................. 116

Figure 30. Evacuation times for 95 % of building occupants from selected drills compared with 

EvacuatioNZ predictions (maximum and minimum predicted values indicated). ..................... 116
xvi 

Figure 31. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 4 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. ............................................................. 117

Figure 32. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 5 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. ............................................................. 117

Figure 33. Cumulative number of people exiting Stair 6-5 and Stair 6-5A where simulations 

randomly assign floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. .................................. 118

Figure 34. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 7 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. ............................................................. 119

Figure 35. Cumulative number of people exiting Stair 8N and Stair 8S where simulations 

randomly assign floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. .................................. 120
1 

Movement on Stairs During Building Evacuations 

Erica D. Kuligowski, Richard D. Peacock, Paul A. Reneke, Emily Wiess, 

Charles R. Hagwood, Kristopher J. Overholt, Rena P. Elkin and Jason D. Averill 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

Enrico Ronchi 

Lund University 

Bryan L. Hoskins 

Oklahoma State University 

Michael Spearpoint 

University of Canterbury 

1 Introduction 

Science-based egress designs and evacuation procedures have significant potential to mitigate 

the growing costs of fire protection features in building construction, which are now 

approximately $63 billion annually in the United States [1]. Adoption and appropriate use of 

efficient egress designs and advanced egress technologies can provide safer and more cost 

effective building designs, particularly for taller buildings. 

The tragic loss of life in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks sheds light on the levels of safety 

provided by tall buildings in the United States, and the technical foundation of the mechanisms 

used to provide or assess these levels of fire safety: U.S.-based prescriptive and performancebased codes and standards. In prescriptive codes, building egress systems are designed around 

outdated stair capacity concepts in the building codes and standards or numerical egress models 

where the limited amount of usable input or validation data renders output highly uncertain. 

Economical building designs, changing occupant demographics, and consumer demand for more 

efficient systems have driven egress designs beyond the traditional stair-based approaches, with 

little technical foundation for performance or consideration of economic trade-offs. 

Similarly, performance-based analysis of building egress is based upon the use of analytical tools 

and models that may be sophisticated in design but built upon datasets extremely limited in 

number, size, scope, and representativeness. Current egress techniques even go so far as to 

develop capabilities not technically founded in research and data, and/or require the users to 

supply data as input for egress-related areas where little or no data exist. Additionally, while 

some models have been subjected to extensive verification and validation efforts, as well as 

uncertainty analyses [2], many have not. 

This report focuses on the understanding of evacuation movement of people in stairs. While real 

emergency data is most desirable and might provide the most realistic predictor of behavior, it is 

not as readily available as fire drill data. For practical purposes, fire drill data is often used to 

represent emergency behavior. A key assumption, consistent with most of the data presented in 

the literature values discussed in Chapter 2, is that fire drill data can be used to approximate the 

response of individuals in an actual emergency [3]. This is, of course, dependent on whether the 

population is directly exposed to smoke and/or fire cues; meaning that fire drill data may best 

approximate the reaction and conditions experienced of those who are not close enough to the 

hazard to identify it as an emergency. In many high-rise evacuations, as is the case in this study, 
2 

it is also conceivable that a significant portion of the population has not been exposed to enough 

fire cues to be certain if it is an emergency. 

Therefore, the majority of the report focuses the provision of data on the speed or rate of descent 

of occupants on stairs during fire-drill evacuations, and the identification of the building-related 

factors that most influence evacuation rates (and in turn, evacuation efficiency) on stairs in tall 

buildings. Intended to complement earlier research on the use of elevators for occupant 

evacuation [4], this report provides technical foundation for best practices in the design and 

evaluation of safety provided by egress systems for tall buildings in the U.S. 

Although the primary focus of this report is on stair evacuation movement speed and the 

important stair design parameters that may impact this movement, human behavior also plays a 

key role in the overall evacuation timing. Thus, information on the timing prior to occupants 

entering the stair is included. Additional analysis of behavior is not included in this report, 

though some analysis of data collected from questionnaires is available in reference [5]. 

1.1 Purpose

As part of a program to better understand occupant movement during building emergencies, the 

Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been 

collecting stair movement data during fire drill evacuations of office and residential buildings. 

These data are intended to provide a better understanding of principal building egress features 

and develop a technical foundation for codes and standards requirements as well as egress 

modeling techniques. To date, NIST has collected fire drill evacuation data in 14 buildings 

ranging from six to 62 stories in height that include both office and residential occupancies, and 

a range of stair widths and occupant densities. 

This report provides details of the data collected, an analysis of the data, and examples of the use 

of the data. The intention is to better understand movement during stair evacuations and to test 

the predictive capability of building egress models. 

1.2 Report Organization

This report is organized as follows. 

 Chapter 2 reviews building code requirements and previous research results related to 

stair egress. 

 Chapter 3 describes the data collected and techniques used for the collection of the data. 

 Chapter 4 presents the results including the time occupants took to move to the stairs, 

movement speed in the stairs, and occupant density observed on landings in the stairs. 
3 

 Chapter 5 includes an analysis of the data to identify important parameters that influence 

the speed of stair evacuation and provides examples of the use of the data to better 

understand human behavior and modeling of stair egress. 

 Chapter 6 summarizes the important findings from the research and outlines important 

areas for future research that were not addressed in the current study. Implications of the 

results on both building code requirements and engineering analysis are discussed. 

 Finally, the appendices provide additional details for several topics in the report. 

o Appendix A details measurements of all of the stairs included in the study 

(referenced in Section 3.4). 

o Appendix B describes the calculation of harmonic mean and uncertainties for 

movements speed data included in the report (referenced in Sections 4.1.4 and 

4.4). 

o Appendix C presents local movement speeds at every camera location in all the 

stairs included in the study (referenced in Section 4.4.2). 

o Appendix D includes details of the linear least squares and Bayesian analyses 

used to determine important parameters that impact occupant movement in stairs 

(referenced in Section 5.3). 

o Appendix E reviews the underlying theory of point process modeling (referenced 

in Section 5.4).
4 

2 Background and Previous Research 

This section provides an overview of research related to stair evacuation, including movement 

speeds and flows, occupant densities in stairs, and, to a lesser extent, behavior of occupants prior 

to and during building evacuation using stairs. This section ends with a review of the current 

building codes and standards used to design egress systems for tall buildings and the current 

egress models (i.e., simulation techniques) used to assess the safety provided by a building 

design in a performance-based analysis. 

Before research related to stair evacuation is provided in this section, a brief overview of the 

main phases of an individual’s building evacuation is presented, as shown Figure 1. An 

evacuation comprises both the pre-evacuation period and a movement period. The preevacuation period consists of the time from when an occupant realizes that something is wrong 

and ends when the occupant begins to travel an evacuation route out of the building, whereas the 

movement period consists of the time taken to travel an evacuation route out of the building until 

safety is reached. 

Figure 1. Major components of a building evacuation. 

During a building fire, the event begins with ignition somewhere in the building, or a location 

that could cause harm to occupants located in a building. This is denoted in Figure 1 with a black 

dot at the beginning of the evacuation timeline. The next phase pictured in Figure 1 is that of the 

pre-alarm period, or the time period between ignition and when the fire alarm (or other signaling 

means, including a person detecting a fire and beginning to alert others in the building of the 

event) is activated in the building. The pre-alarm phase can be very quick if a fire is detected 

soon after ignition, or could be a lengthy process in which only building staff are made aware of 

an event, for example, and take time to investigate before making the larger building population 

aware of the event. The next phase in the pre-evacuation period involves information seeking 

and the receipt of cues, which itself involves movement, interactions with others, and is iterative, 

eventually leading to the decision to evacuate (especially if sufficient information is received, 

leading to the perception of personal risk). As shown in Figure 1, once occupants decide to 

Pre-evacuation 

period 

Protective 

Actions 

Ignition Alarm 

Time 

Informationseeking 

Actions 

Evacuation 

Actions 

Evacuation 

Decision 

Movement 

begins... 

Movement 

period 

Pre-alarm 

period 
5 

evacuate, the next phase in the pre-evacuation period is the performance of protective actions. In 

a building fire, protective actions can consist of gathering personal items, assisting others, 

alerting others of the need to evacuate, and/or firefighting. Once protective actions are performed 

(if any at all), occupants transition into the movement period of the building evacuation, 

consisting of using egress paths in the building to reach safety. 

Since much of this report provides data on pre-evacuation delay time and stair movement (see 

Chapter 4 of this report), the following two sections, 2.1 and 2.2, provide data from previous 

studies on these topics, respectively. Subsequently, sections 2.3 and 2.4 provide an overview of 

the current status of egress-related prescriptive and egress modeling techniques that may or may 

not use these data to assess building safety. 

2.1 Earlier Studies on Pre‐evacuation Timing/Delays and Behavior

Researchers have studied the time delay from initial notification of a fire event to the beginning 

of evacuation, often termed “pre-evacuation time,” but more accurately described as evacuation 

initiation delay. This type of information is often captured via observation (e.g., videos) and/or 

post-event surveys or interviews, and attempts to determine the range of delay time, including 

mean and standard deviation, for a specific building evacuation event. This section provides a 

literature review of pre-evacuation studies from a variety of building types and events, including 

fire drills and actual fire emergencies. Each study will be briefly described before presenting preevacuation timing data, and will list explanations of delay, if provided in the original research 

article. This section will conclude with all pre-evacuation delay data presented in tabular form 

(see Table 1 on page 10). 

2.1.1 Real Fire Incidents

The following studies collected data on pre-evacuation delay times from occupants who were in 

buildings where actual fire incidents occurred. First, Bryan studied occupant behavior during the 

MGM Grand Hotel fire in Clark County, Nevada [6]. He sent out questionnaires to the hotel 

guests who were registered at the time of the incident. The questionnaire was intended to gauge 

occupant interaction and behavior throughout the evacuation process. When the fire broke out, 

no alarm warning was sounded to alert occupants of the pending danger. Findings show that the 

average pre-evacuation delay time for 536 persons was 60 seconds. 

Fahy and Proulx compiled findings on human behavior during emergency evacuations after a 

bomb was detonated in an underground parking garage at the World Trade Center in New York 

City in 1993 [7]. Occupants of the surrounding buildings were required to follow specific fire 

safety procedures that included a minimum of two fire drills each year. The impact of such 

training prior to this emergency was given particular attention when analyzing the occupant 

behavior data collected from the investigation of this explosion. An account of individual 

behavior was obtained from the 419 completed surveys submitted from occupants in the two 

towers. They report pre-evacuation delay times for the 229 occupants in Tower 1 ranged from 2 

minutes to 30 minutes with a mean time of 8 minutes and 54 seconds while the pre-evacuation 

delay times for the 163 occupants in Tower 2 ranged from 5 minutes to 240 minutes with a mean 
6 

time of 39 minutes and 54 seconds. Occupants from Tower 1 reported shorter delay time periods 

than occupants in Tower 2 and accounts of calling family or friends before evacuating was 

reported more frequently among occupants in Tower 2 than those in Tower 1. Fahy and Proulx 

suggest that this was due to fewer clear warning cues received by occupants in Tower 2 since the 

location of the explosion was closer to Tower 1. 

Taking a new approach to quantifying pre-evacuation delay times, Brennan (1997) conducted 

interviews with 36 participants who evacuated a 14-story office building after a fire broke out on 

the third floor [8]. Participants gave an informal description of their experiences before 

researchers questioned the rationale behind each action that was mentioned. Specific times 

indicating when the pre-evacuation delay times ended and the evacuation stages began were 

retrieved from outside sources to ensure that the data collected was not biased by participants’ 

misconceptions of their experiences. Brennan reports that pre-evacuation delay times ranged 

from 60 to 300 seconds. 

Averill et al. [9-12], as part of the NIST Federal Investigation of the World Trade Center (WTC) 

disaster in New York City in 2001, collected data on pre-evacuation delays from survivors of the 

two towers (WTC 1 and WTC 2). A total of 803 telephone interviews were performed, asking 

survivors about their emergency training and preparedness, the three stages of the evacuation 

experiences (the first moments when WTC 1 was attacked, the interim period between initial 

awareness and entering a stair/elevator, and the time spent in the stair or elevator), and 

background information about the respondent. Data collected during the interim period of the 

evacuation provided insight on the time occupants spent in both buildings before beginning 

evacuation (defined as the time interval from first awareness to the time the respondent left 

his/her floor to begin evacuation). In WTC 1, on average, survivors began their evacuation 

within 6 minutes. Similarly, survivors of WTC 2 began their evacuation also within 6 minutes, 

on average. Looking into the data a bit further, the most frequent response for survivors 

throughout WTC 1 and 2 was one minute or less, and 50 % of the occupants had left their floors 

within 3 to 5 minutes (depending on the three evacuation zones; basement to floor 42, floors 43-

76, and floors 77-91). However, a few individuals in the towers took significantly longer 

(sometimes longer than 30 minutes) to begin evacuation, which disproportionately affected the 

mean start time for WTC 1 and 2. Averill et al. (2005) provides further data on the quartile, 

mode and average times to start evacuation for survivors of both towers, categorized by zones 

within each tower. 

2.1.2 Evacuation Studies

Proulx et al. observed evacuation drills from seven mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings in 

Canada [13, 14]2

. Although occupants were given advanced notification that a fire drill would be 

conducted in the building, no information regarding when the drill would take place was 

disclosed. The video cameras that were set up in the hallways of each building were used to 

document the pre-evacuation delay times for over 500 occupants. After the evacuation was 

completed, approximately 25 percent of the residents reported the belief that there was a real fire 

 

2

 In one of the buildings, occupants evacuated onto their balconies instead of proceeding to the ground floor and 

exiting the building. Although times that occupants appeared on their respective balconies were recorded, data on 

occupants’ pre-evacuation delay times from this building are too obscure and therefore are not included here. 
7 

in the building and that the alarm was not a drill. The average pre-evacuation time for occupants 

in the six buildings ranged from 169 s to 540 s. To explain the differences in the observed delay 

times, researchers note that the audibility of the alarm system in one of the buildings was very 

poor. As a result, many occupants did not prepare to evacuate until they heard the sirens of 

approaching fire trucks or until they received warnings from firefighters knocking on their doors. 

The researchers also point out that the drills done in the three buildings with the shorter observed 

mean delay times were each performed during the summer in the evening on a weekday while 

the drill done in the building with the longest mean delay time took place on a Saturday morning 

in the winter. Proulx and colleagues suggest that the cold weather outside caused longer delay 

times because residents took extra time to put on coats, boots, etc. before evacuating. 

In order to assess and optimize the effectiveness of photoluminsecent material in evacuations 

during a blackout, Proulx and Bénichou conducted evacuation drills in a 13-story office building 

in Canada [15, 16]. Pre-evacuation delay times of 1191 occupants were recorded by video 

cameras with a mean time of 329 seconds. 

Gwynne observed multiple evacuation drills in various buildings and quantified occupants’ 

evacuation times [17]. These drills were activated by different emergency notification systems in 

order to evaluate which system produced the most rapid response. Two of the buildings observed 

in his study were multi-story office buildings located in the UK, one had 11-stories and one had 

4-stories. The drill in the taller building used an alarm with voice, tone and strobe capabilities, 

compared to a notification system with only tone and strobe alerts that was used in the low-rise 

building. Gwynne mentions a few more inconsistencies between the buildings. For instance, fire 

drills had been conducted in the 4-story office building within the previous year and rarely had a 

false alarm, whereas no such drills were conducted in the 11-story office building and false 

alarms were triggered relatively frequently. Drills in both of these buildings were observed 

during inclement weather3

 and pre-evacuation delay times were collected from video recordings, 

supported by documentation from human observers and occupants’ responses to surveys. 

Individual pre-evacuation delay times for 72 observed occupants in the 11-story building ranged 

from 40 to 426 seconds with a mean delay time of 2 minutes and 21.3 seconds. Pre-evacuation 

delay times for the 348 observed occupants in the 4-story building ranged from 19 to 269 s with 

a mean time of 101 s. 

Purser and Raggio studied response to voice notification and sound alarms in building 

evacuations [18]. In one study, video cameras were used to record the pre-evacuation behavior of 

12 visiting occupants in a meeting room on the 3rd floor of an office building in the UK. The 

alarm emitted a four-second warning signal followed by a voice message lasting 13-seconds. 

Quickly responding to the alarm, occupants were recorded gathering their belongings and exiting 

the building. Computed from the raw data, pre-evacuation delay times were found to be 

relatively short, ranging from 32 to 57 seconds with a mean time of 46 seconds. 

Gwynne and Boswell conducted a study to examine pre-evacuation delay times in a mid-rise 

administrative building [19]. Video cameras and human observers were strategically situated to 

document pre-evacuation behavior without inadvertently revealing their objective to building 

 

3

 For the 11-story building, the weather conditions were reported as “very cold; presence of snow and ice.” For the 

4-story building, the weather conditions were reported as “cold, but clear.” 
8 

occupants. Data extracted from video cameras for 132 occupants show pre-evacuation delay 

times ranged from 23 to 152 seconds with a mean time of 74 seconds; manual documentation of 

pre-evacuation delay time for 150 occupants ranged from 5 to 173 seconds. 

Sharma et. al., in order to create new egress modeling software, collected data on occupant 

behavior evacuating from a 6-story office building in the UK [20]. By way of video cameras and 

surveys, the individual pre-evacuation delay times for the 19 observed occupants ranged from 10 

to 55 seconds with a mean time of 28 seconds and a standard deviation of 11 seconds. 

Many buildings mandate resident or employee participation in fire safety drills or training 

courses to ensure that occupants know where to go in the event of an emergency. Researchers 

have commented on how previous training may affect occupant behavior during emergency 

evacuations. In one study, Proulx and Pineau documented the pre-evacuation delay times for 

over 1000 occupants within three Canadian office buildings [21]. Although occupants had 

received evacuation training, researchers pointed out that the employees often completed 

whatever tasks they were working on before proceeding to evacuate. These occupants averaged a 

50 second delay time which was considerably shorter than the observed movement in Proulx’s 

studies on occupants in residential buildings [13, 14]. 

Shields, Boyce, and Silcock examined evacuation behaviors of customers in retail stores [22]. 

This study implemented video cameras to monitor customer behavior. With a mean preevacuation delay time of 25 seconds, Shields, Boyce and Silcock observed that the amount of 

time that lapsed before customers began evacuating depended heavily on the staff’s response and 

compliance with emergency procedures. 

Shields and Boyce observed this same relationship between staff and customer evacuation 

behavior when they conducted unannounced evacuation drills from four Marks and Spencer 

stores in the UK [23]. Video cameras were used to monitor customer behavior in each store. Preevacuation delay times for the four buildings recorded from this study are as follows: 122 

customers were observed in two store locations, 95 in the third location and 71 in the fourth 

location with respective mean pre-evacuation delay times of 37 s ± 19 s, 31 s ± 18 s, 25 s ± 14 s, 

and 25 s ± 13 s. 

Finally, Christoffersen and Sӧderlind conducted an unannounced fire drill in a 12-story office 

building in Copenhagen [24]. Interested in the efficiency of egress models from tall buildings, 

video cameras were set up in stairs on every other floor and human observers were stationed on 

each floor to document occupant timing. Pre-evacuation delay times ranged from 12 to 105 

seconds. These findings account for only 70 occupants as reported from observers on 3 of the 

floors. Christoffersen and Sӧderlind also note that building policy required biannual fire drills so 

employees were accustomed to such procedures and were relatively quick to respond. 

Table 1 includes a summary of the studies of pre-evacuation time during building evacuations. 

Description of the building location, occupancy, and height along with details on the type of 

evacuation (actual incident, informed, or uninformed drill), type of alarm notification, and data 

collection method. Finally, a summary of the results of the studies are included. These results 
9 

vary depending on the type of reported results and may include mean values, median values, or 

the range of observed pre-evacuation times. Additional notes on the study are also included. 
10

Table 1. Summary of pre-evacuation time literature 

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Drill Method Alarm Type Data Collection Method Sample Size Pre‐evacuation Timec Notes

Bryan

1983

L: USA

T: Hotel

F: 23

N/A No alarm notification Post‐incident surveys 536 R: 0‐290 Median: 60s

Fahy and

Proulx

1997

L: USA

T: Office Tower 1

F: 110 N/A Post‐incident

surveys

229 M: 534 R: 120‐1800

‐Suggest that shorter delay

times observed in Tower 1

are due to clearer

emergency cues since Tower

1 was closer to the

explosion.

L: USA

T: Office Tower 2

F: 110

163 M: 2394 R: 600‐14414

Brennan

1997

L: Australia

T: Office Building

F: 14

N/A No alarm notification

Fire brigades

and other

documented

sources

36 R: 60‐300

Averill, et. al.

2005

L: USA

T: Office Tower 1

F: 110

N/A

Post‐incident

telephone

interviews

803

M: 300

R: 60‐1800+

‐Average delay time 6

minutes in each tower,majority of occupants

initiated evacuation prior to6 minutes, but a small

number with much larger

delay times skewed the data.

L: USA

T: Office Tower 2

F: 110

M: 300

R: 60‐1800+

Proulx, et. al.

19941995

Buildings 1‐3

L: Canada

T: 3 Residential Buildings

Quasi‐

Informed

Good audible

quality

Video cameras >500 total

M: 169 ‐Summertime

Building 4

L: Canada

T: Residential Building

Good audible

quality M: 319

‐Wintertime, suggested

explanation for longer

observed delay times thanthose in buildings 1‐3

Buildings 5 ‐ 6

L: Canada

T: 2 Residential

Buildings

Poor audible

quality

M: 540

R: 120‐1500

‐Summertime‐Suggests that long delay

times are a result of poor

audible alarm quality
11

Table 1. Summary of pre‐evacuation time literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Drill Method Alarm Type Data Collection Method Sample Size Pre‐evacuation Timec Notes

Proulx and

Bénichou 2008

L: Canada

T: Office Building

F: 13

Uninformed

Fire alarm bell

rang for 11

minutes and 51

seconds

Video cameras 1191 M: 329

‐Wintertime‐Occupants got dressed

(coat, gloves, etc.), gathered

valuables, secured files

Gwynne

2007

Building 1

L: UK

T: Office Building

F: 11 Uninformed

Voice/tone/

strobe Video camera,

observers,

post‐incident

surveys

72 M: 141.3 R: 40‐426

‐Wintertime Building 2

L: UK

T: Office Building

F: 4

T‐3 Notification

System (tone

and strobe)

348 M: 101 R: 19‐269

Purser and

Raggio

1995

Purser and

Bensilum

2001

L: UK

T: Single meeting room

on 3rd floor of large

office building

Uninformed

Alarm had a 4‐

second sounder

warning signal

followed by a

13‐second voice

message

Video cameras 12 M: 46 R: 32‐57

‐Occupants collected

belongings

Gwynne and

Boswell

2009

L: North America

T: Office Building

F: mid‐rise

Uninformed

Alarm had 3

slow whooping

sounds followed

by a voice

message. Three

minutes later, a

general alarm

was sounded

Video cameras,

observers

132 M: 74 R: 23‐152

150 R: 5‐173

Sharma, et. al.

2009

L: UK

T: Office Building

F: 6

Uninformed

Video cameras,

post‐incident

surveys

19 M: 28 ± 11 R: 10‐55
12

Table 1. Summary of pre‐evacuation time literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Drill Method Alarm Type Data Collection Method Sample Size Pre‐evacuation Timec Notes

Proulx and

Pineau

1996

L: Canada

T: 3 Office Buildings Uninformed Video cameras >1000 M: 50

‐Occupants had previous

training and had annual fire

drills‐Occupants typically

completed activities before

responding

Shields, Boyce

and Sicock

1998

T: Retail Store

F: 1 Uninformed Video cameras M: 25 Maximum: 55s

‐Customer response

depended on staff behaviour

/ response

Shields and

Boyce

2000

Building 1

L: UK

T: Retail Store

F: 3

Uninformed Video cameras

122 M: 37 ± 19 R: 3‐95

‐Customer response

depended on staff behaviour

/ response

Building 2

L: UK

T: Retail Store

F: 3

122 M: 31 ± 18 R: 4‐100

Building 3

L: UK

T: Retail Store

F: 1

95 M: 25 ± 14 R: 1‐55

Building 4

L: UK

T: Retail Store

F: 1

71 M: 25 ± 13 R: 2‐60

Christoffersen

and Sӧderlind

2009

L: Denmark

T: Office Building

F: 12 floors

Uninformed Video cameras, observers 70 R: 12‐105  ‐Biannual fire drills

a – Author and year

b – L = location, T = building type, F = number of floors

c – M = mean seconds, SD = standard Deviation in seconds, R = range in seconds
13 

After the pre-evacuation period, the next phase in the building evacuation timeline is the 

movement period. A compilation of studies reporting data collected from the movement period 

are provided in the following section. 

2.2 Earlier Studies on Stair Movement

Researchers have also studied and collected evacuation time from a variety of buildings under 

different emergency and non-emergency conditions. In order to calculate evacuation time of a 

particular building, researchers have collected three different types of people movement data 

during evacuation. The most common type of data is movement speed. Movement speed has 

been reported both in terms of distance per unit time (e.g. m/s) as well as in terms of the number 

of floors per unit time (or unit time per floor). Multiple researchers have developed correlations 

to calculate the speeds of evacuees based upon specific independent variables. The most 

common independent variable in those equations, density, is a second type of data that 

researchers have collected. Density has typically been reported in terms of persons per unit area 

(e.g. persons/m2

), but it has also been given as a dimensionless ratio of the area occupied by 

persons per the floor area. The third type of data that has been collected is the flow of occupants 

through various building components. Occupant flow is measured as the number of people past a 

certain point in the building component, often times a point on the stairs or at a doorway, per unit 

time (i.e., people per second). Additionally, for comparison purposes, flow is sometimes reported 

as the number of people past a point in the building, per unit time per unit width of the 

component (referred to as specific flow). 

Data on speed, density and flow have been organized in the sections, below. Data collected from 

actual fire events will be presented first, followed by data from evacuation drills, normal 

conditions, and then laboratory experiments. Finally, this is then summarized in Table 2 

(following the text). 

2.2.1 Actual Fires

Averill et al. [9] conducted telephone interviews with survivors of the World Trade Center 

collapse in New York City in 2001 (n=803). A certain sample of these interviewees (n=368, 

occupants of floor 10 to floor 91 in WTC 1) reported time spent in the stairs and thus, their stair 

speeds during evacuation were analyzed in the study. In Tower 1 (two stairs 1100 mm-wide 

stairs and one 1400 mm-wide stair), the average movement speed was 0.2 m/s for the entire 

evacuation via stairs. This included any rest periods, crowding in the stairs, transfer floors, 

switching stairwells, and the impact of smoke, water, and a significant number of obstacles in the 

stairs reported by many occupants [9]. 

Shields, Boyce, and McConnell [25] used data collected from interviews from six survivors of 

the 2001 World Trade Center collapse that had self-identified mobility impairments prior to 

September 11, 2001. For five of the six occupants, the authors were able to describe the activities 

and movement speeds (in terms of floors) as they descended. These speeds ranged from 

43 s/floor to 150 s/floor. 
14 

As part of their study, Galea et al. [26] interviewed survivors of the 2001 World Trade Center 

collapse (129 from Tower 1 and 125 from Tower 2). From the accounts of thirty interviewees 

from Tower 1, the average speed was 0.29 m/s. 

2.2.2 Fire Drills

Pauls [27] observed a pre-event announced drill in a commercial building in Canada, which had 

910 occupants using two 1190 mm stairs with 178 mm riser heights and 254 mm tread depths. 

An additional 35 occupants who could not walk down the stairs were able to use elevators for 

egress. Observers moved within the main flow and the author was able to estimate the average 

descending speed of evacuees. These values ranged from 0.61 m/s to 0.81 m/s. 

Pauls and Jones [28] studied two office building evacuations with unannounced evacuations in 

Canada. For the first evacuation, there were five 1140 mm-wide stairs. A total of 1453 ablebodied people used four of the five stairs and 73 people who were disabled or assisting the 

disabled occupants used the center stair. Above the seventh floor, the movement speeds along 

the slope of the stairs were lower than below the seventh floor due to the stairs being used at a 

significantly greater density, with the slowest recorded speed being 0.23 m/s. Below the seventh 

floor, the average speed was 0.44 m/s. On the ground floor, the mean speed was 0.66 m/s with a 

mean density of 1.38 persons/m2

. In the second building, the authors did not provide movement 

speeds. 

Proulx [29] videotaped fire drills in four similar apartment buildings in four different Canadian 

cities. All of the buildings were 6 to 7 stories high. The average speed on the stairs ranged from 

0.52 m/s to 0.62 m/s. Children between the ages of 2 to 5 years old and the elderly had average 

speeds of 0.45 m/s and 0.43 m/s, respectively. During the evacuations, occupants tended to use 

stairs that they used on a regular basis even if other stairs were closer to their apartment. The 

stairs were never crowded during the drill (although the density was not reported), but many 

occupants traveled in groups. 

Proulx, et al. [14] recorded evacuations from three high-rise buildings in Canada. For all of the 

drills, cameras were placed in corridors as well as in both stairs (each building had exactly two). 

Occupants tended to travel in groups and use the nearest stair. The groups were described to be 

moving at the speed of the slowest member and the stairs were described as not being crowded. 

For the first building in the Proulx et al. study [14], the average speed on stairs was 1.07 m/s. 

Fourteen men averaged 1.14 m/s and fifteen women averaged 1.00 m/s, but the difference was 

not significant. Groups traveled slightly slower than individuals (nineteen group members 

averaged 1.00 m/s while ten individuals averaged 1.18 m/s). The second building had an overall 

average speed on stairs of 1.05 m/s (n=28 occupants). Women moved slightly faster, but again, 

the difference was not significant. For the third building, the average speed for 76 occupants was 

0.95 m/s. For descending stairs, men moved statistically faster (1.05 m/s) than women (0.86 

m/s). The authors then compared the descent speeds of each gender across the three buildings. 

Neither the descent speed of men nor women was significant across the three buildings. The 

authors then combined the populations from the three buildings and found that men (average 

speed 1.07 m/s) and women (average speed 0.90 m/s) were not statistically significant at the 95% 

confidence level. 
15 

Proulx, Kaufman, and Pineau [30] observed evacuation drills in two government office buildings 

in Canada. Video cameras were located in corridors and in the stairs. There were 165 occupants 

in the first building, descending the stairs at a mean speed for all occupants of 0.78 m/s. 

Additionally, women traveled statistically faster than men (0.81 m/s compared to 0.72 m/s). The 

second building had 502 occupants. The average speed on the stairs was 0.93 m/s. Men had a 

statistically faster average speed (0.96 m/s) than women (0.90 m/s). 

Shields, et al. [31] observed an unannounced drill in an educational building in the UK with 276 

occupants present. Two stairs were located within the building with 77% of the population using 

one stair. People descending behind a wheelchair had a mean movement speed of 0.33 m/s and 

those ahead of the wheelchair had average speeds of 1.1 m/s. 

Proulx, et al. [32] recorded people movement data from 457 occupants in four stairs during a 

building evacuation drill in Canada. Each stair was equipped with different illumination levels. 

In the stair with only the photoluminescent markings, 144 occupants had a mean speed of 0.57 

m/s with a range of speeds from 0.39 m/s to 1.13 m/s. There were 65 occupants in the stair with 

reduced emergency lighting and photoluminescent markings who had speeds from 0.64 m/s to 

1.30 m/s (average 0.72 m/s). For the stair with only reduced emergency lighting, 82 occupants 

had speeds from 0.41 m/s to 1.14 m/s and a mean speed of 0.70 m/s. In the control stair with 

normal emergency lighting, there were 101 occupants whose speeds varied between 0.45 m/s to 

0.84 m/s with a mean speed of 0.61 m/s. Density was calculated for the average conditions in 

each stair during the busiest three minutes of the drill. The densities were 2.05 persons/m2

(photoluminescent markings stair), 1.00 persons/m2 (reduced emergency lighting and 

photoluminescent markings stair), 1.23 persons/m2 (reduced emergency lighting stair), and 1.30 

persons/m2

 (normal emergency lighting stair). 

Khisty [33] observed 21 unannounced fire drills and normal use in dormitories 3 to 12 stories in 

height in Washington State. Drills were conducted at all hours of the day with the latest one at 

11 p.m. Exit interviews with a random sample of at least 10% of the occupants after each drill 

found that 80% of occupants thought that the drills were real incidents. Across all buildings, the 

stair risers varied from 165 mm to 190 mm with tread heights from 279 mm to 305 mm. The 

width of the stairs varied from 1220 mm to 2130 mm. Time-lapse photography at 18 frames per 

second was used to record the drills. Observers also moved within the flow to collect data. 

During the emergency evacuation, the mode and median of density were 1.96 persons/m2

 and 

1.40 persons/m2, respectively. Comparatively, under normal conditions, the mode and median of 

density were 1.66 persons/m2

 and 1.38 persons/m2, respectively. The highest recorded speeds 

were 0.64 m/s and 0.70 m/s for normal and emergency conditions respectively. Flows were also 

seen to increase under emergency conditions. The maximum specific flow increased from 0.90 

persons/m-s to 1.00 persons/m-s. 

Proulx, et al. [16] observed a single fire drill in Canada with approximately 4000 occupants. Of 

the 4000 occupants, 1191 occupants were recorded in the studied stairs. Four of the six 1100 

mm stairs in the building were observed during the drill. All of the stairs had densities that 

ranged from 1.56 persons/m2

 to 1.60 persons/m2 during the busiest five minutes of the drill and 

the maximum density was 2.30 persons/m2

. The speeds for occupant descent ranged from 0.17 
16 

m/s to 1.87 m/s. The mean speed in four stairs was 0.40 m/s, 0.57 m/s, 0.66 m/s, and 0.66 m/s. 

The slower speed in one of the stairs was attributed to the descent of individuals with mobility 

impairments. 

Hostikka, et al. [34] observed the evacuation of 281 occupants from a 7-story office building in 

FInland. There were four egress paths usually available, but two of the more commonly used 

exits were blocked using cold smoke. Occupants were observed using both video cameras and 

radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Queues formed under two different scenarios. First, 

slower individuals moved to the side to let people from higher floors pass them. Second, one 

group stopped to let occupants from lower levels enter the stair. From video images, the flow 

rates on the lower floors ranged from 0.80 persons/m-s to 0.83 persons/m-s. For densities less 

than 0.5 persons/m2

, the data was scattered with most observations falling between 0.5 m/s to 1.5 

m/s. For densities between 0.5 persons/m2 to 2.5 persons/m2, the velocity decreased linearly 

from approximately 0.75 m/s to 0.5 m/s. The median value was 0.64 m/s. Men and women were 

found to travel at the same speeds. 

From the late 1960s to the 1970s, Pauls [35] conducted 58 total evacuations from high-rise office 

buildings in Canada. The stairs had widths that ranged from 910 m to 1520 mm. The variation 

of riser heights and tread dimensions were not provided, but mention was made of the maximum 

tread depth, 279 mm, and at least one stair with a tread depth of 229 mm. Also, the exact heights 

of buildings were not given, but buildings 18 to 20 stories were described as being very tall. 

Regarding people movement, Pauls found that disabled occupants slowed the flow in their 

general vicinity, but had no noticeable effect on the overall flow. Also, Pauls identified 20 of the 

58 cases as being ones where individuals required coats due to cold or wet weather. In these 

cold or wet weather evacuations, the flows dropped by 6 %. Furthermore, Pauls concluded that 

the optimum evacuation conditions (maximum flow) occurred when the density was 2.0 p/m2

 for 

which the speed was 0.5 m/s. 

Kagawa, Kose, and Morishita [36] video recorded a fire drill in a 53 story high-rise office 

building in Japan. Approximately 1500 individuals used two 1.20 m-wide emergency stairs. 

Generally speaking, observers had an initial delay after first entering the stairs and then 

descended approximately one story every 16 seconds. Stagnation of the flow was reported in 

several locations, but the density did not exceed 3 persons/m2. 

2.2.3 Normal Conditions

The movement of people under normal conditions was also collected and related to evacuation 

during fires. Examples include people moving through mass transportation stations or leaving a 

theater after the performed has ended. 

Fruin [37], as part of his work on pedestrian planning, observed people on two stairs on the East 

Coast of the United States. On an indoor stair with a 178 mm riser and 286 mm tread, descent 

speeds on stairs were the following: 

 Men under 30 years, 0.98 m/s 

 Men between the ages of 30 to 50 years, 0.81 m/s 

 Men over 50 years old, 0.67 m/s 
17 

 Women under 30 years old, 0.70 m/s 

 Women between 30 to 50 years old, 0.60 m/s 

 Women over 50 years old, 0.56 m/s 

On an outdoor stair with a 152 mm riser and 305 mm tread, average speeds increased for all ages 

and genders. For men, the average speeds were 1.10 m/s, 0.96 m/s, and 0.71 m/s for the age 

groups from youngest to oldest. The three female age groups, in the same order, had average 

speeds of 0.79 m/s, 0.77 m/s, and 0.66 m/s. 

Tanaboriboon and Guyano [38] studied descent on four different stairs in Bangkok, Thailand. 

The first stair had a 200 mm riser and 300 mm tread, was 1200 mm wide and speeds ranged from 

0.39 m/s to 0.87 m/s, with a mean speed of 0.58 m/s. The second stair was 3000 mm wide and 

had a 150 mm riser and the 300 mm tread width. On the second stair, speeds ranged from 0.44 

m/s to 0.82 m/s, with a mean speed of 0.60 m/s. The third stair had a 140 mm riser and 300 mm 

tread, and was 1200 mm wide. The minimum speed observed was 0.44 m/s and the maximum 

was 0.82 m/s, with a mean speed of 0.61 m/s. The final stair had a 130 mm riser, 300 mm tread, 

and was 1400 mm wide. The speeds ranged from 0.46 m/s to 0.89 m/s, with a mean speed of 

0.62 m/s. 

Lee and Lam [39] video recorded stair use in Hong Kong mass transit railway stations during the 

morning peak (8:00 to 10:00), afternoon off-peak (14:00 to 16:00), and evening peak (17:30 to 

19:30) hours. The stair had an effective width of 1940 mm with a riser height of 160 mm and a 

tread depth of 310 mm. When the stairs were at the peak capacity, the average speed of descent 

ranged from 0.48 m/s to 0.65 m/s. Individual speeds during stair descent varied from 0.38 m/s to 

0.92 m/s and 0.29 m/s to 0.93 m/s for the unidirectional and heavy counterflow cases, 

respectively. 

Ye et al. [40] video recorded stair descent from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. in one subway station in 

Shanghai, China from October to November 2006. The stair had 150 mm risers, 300 mm treads, 

and was 3050 mm wide. Speeds primarily fell between 0.5 m/s to 1.2 m/s for densities up to 1.7 

persons/m2

. 

The National Bureau of Standards (NBS) [41] mainly observed three stairs under normal 

conditions in buildings in the United States. The first stair was 1900 mm wide with a 191 mm 

riser and 286 mm tread. The average discharge rate (or flow) was 0.60 persons/m-s with a 

maximum of 0.71 persons/m-s. These values corresponded to densities of 1.33 persons/m2

 and 

1.86 persons/m2

. The second stair was 1520 mm wide with a 184 mm riser and 305 mm tread 

depth. The average and maximum discharge rates were 1.04 persons/m-s and 1.53 persons/m-s, 

respectively. The densities were also increased as the average density was 2.20 persons/m2

 and 

the maximum density was 2.83 persons/m2 (2.74 and 3.53 persons/m2 for assumed effective 

width). The third stair was 914 mm wide and had 178 mm risers and 292 mm treads. The 

average discharge rate was 1.70 persons/m-s and the maximum specific flow was 1.86 

persons/m-s. The average and maximum densities were 2.63 persons/m2. 

In the NBS study [41], in addition to the stairs where densities were provided, eight other stairs 

were presented with only flow rates. These stairs were from a variety of building types as well 
18 

as experimental conditions. The widths varied from 1260 mm to 2220 mm with riser heights and 

tread depths varying from 165 mm to 203 mm and 267 to 305 mm, respectively. This resulted in 

average flows from 0.77 persons/m-s to 1.59 persons/m-s. 

The London Transport Board [42] observed passengers in nine London subway stations. The 

stairs were 1000 mm to 2000 mm wide and had between 19 to 23 uninterrupted steps or two sets 

of 12 steps. The free flow speed was reported as 0.98 m/s. At conditions of maximum flow, the 

average speed was 0.67 m/s. At maximum flow conditions, the flow was 1.1 persons/m-s and the 

density was 1.6 persons/m2

. Also, the authors noted that, for stairs less than 1220 mm, occupants 

exited proportional to exit lanes 530 mm wide and, above this threshold, it was proportional to 

the entire width. The authors also found that the flow rate was approximately constant for most 

densities studied. As density increased, speed was found to proportionally decrease. 

2.2.4 Laboratory Experiments

Frantzich [43] conducted a study that was divided into two parts. For the first part of the study, 

students were videotaped ascending and descending a 1300 mm stair with 270 mm tread depth 

and 170 mm riser height under controlled conditions. Individuals descended at 1.0 m/s. For 

groups, the movement speed varied from 0.82 to 0.91 m/s with densities ranging from 2.2 

persons/m2

 to 2.5 persons/m2. The second part of the study consisted of the general population 

after a performance in a theater. The stair was 2250 mm wide with a tread depth of 300 mm and 

a riser height of 150 mm. The movement speed varied from 0.3 m/s to 1.3 m/s. 

In a second study by Frantzich [44], subjects were students age 20 to 30 years old, with no 

known movement disabilities. The first, base case, used a 1300 mm wide stair. The three 

alternates were: using a 900 mm wide stair; having two stationary individuals force the flow to 

move around them, thus increasing the density; and having slower individuals in the stair that 

were passed. The primary stair used in the investigation had a tread depth of 280 mm and a riser 

height of 175 mm. The narrower stair used in the investigation had a tread depth of 225 mm and 

a riser height of 205 mm. In the trials without any obstructions, the minimum interpersonal 

spacing was found to be 370 mm. For the case where the stair width was reduced, the 

interpersonal spacing4

 decreased to 250 mm. For descending the 1300 mm wide stair without 

obstructions, the movement speed varied from 0.27 m/s to 1.09 m/s with a mean speed of 0.69 

m/s and a standard deviation of 0.15 m/s. For the 900 mm wide stair, the speed varied from 0 

m/s to 2.27 m/s with a mean speed of 0.72 m/s and a standard deviation of 0.27 m/s. 

Boyce, Shields, and Silcock [45] had volunteers in the United Kingdom with and without 

disabilities use different egress components. For stairs, forty-two subjects were able to 

participate. The eight subjects without disabilities had a mean descent speed of 0.70 m/s with a 

range of speeds from 0.45 m/s to 1.10 m/s. The thirty disabled subjects who were not assisted by 

another person had a mean speed of 0.33 m/s with a range from 0.11 m/s to 0.70 m/s. Within this 

group, nineteen subjects did not use a mobility aid and had a mean speed of 0.36 m/s; their 

speeds ranged from 0.13 m/s to 0.70 m/s. Nine subjects used a walking stick and had a mean 

speed of 0.32 m/s; their speeds were between 0.11 m/s and 0.49 m/s. One subject on crutches and 

 

4

 i.e., the distance between the center points of an evacuee and the closest evacuee directly behind in the stairwell 

during the evacuation 
19 

one subject that used a rollator had speeds of 0.22 m/s and 0.16 m/s, respectively. For the four 

personally-assisted subjects, the average speed was 0.13 m/s and the range of speeds was 0.11 

m/s to 0.23 m/s. 

Wright, Cook, and Webber [46] conducted a laboratory study in a purpose-built egress stair in a 

two-story office configuration. Eighteen subjects walked down a smoke-filled single flight of 

stairs under six different lighting conditions. The smoke varied in mean optical density from 1.1 

m-1 to 1.2 m-1. The different lighting conditions were normal lighting, emergency lighting, 

electroluminescent wayguidance system, miniature incandescent wayguidance system, and two 

light emitting diode wayguidance systems. Under normal and emergency lighting, the average 

speeds were approximately 0.3 m/s. The other four systems had average speeds that ranged from 

approximately 0.35 m/s to 0.42 m/s. 

Fujiyama and Tyler [47] had subjects ascend and descend four sets of stairs. The first stair had 

12 steps with a riser height of 185 mm and a tread depth of 230 mm. The second stair also had 12 

steps with 175 mm and 250 mm riser height and tread depth, respectively. For the third stair, 

there were 15 steps with a riser height of 157 mm and a tread depth of 267 mm. Finally, the 

fourth stair had 9 steps and 152 mm riser height and 332 mm tread depth. There were 18 subjects 

between ages 60 to 81 years and 15 subjects between the ages of 25 to 60 years. For descending 

the first flight of stairs, occupants were asked to move at their normal pace. For the second set, 

the occupants were asked to move at their fast pace. For the normal pace trials, speeds for the 

younger group ranged from 0.76 to 0.96 m/s, while the older group had comparable speeds of 

0.60 m/s to 0.88 m/s. With the exception of one descending stair, the differences between the two 

groups was not significant for the normal speeds. For the fast pace trials, the younger group had 

average speeds from 1.12 m/s to 1.30 m/s and the older group averaged 0.80 m/s to 1.11 m/s. 

For all stairs, the difference between the speeds of the two groups was significant at the 95% 

level or higher. 

2.2.5 Behavioral Aspects

Once stair evacuation begins, occupant interactions within the stair can also impact movement 

speeds. Proulx [3], for example, found stairway movement involves a complex set of behaviors, 

such as resting, investigation, and communication. Movement on stairways is also affected by 

the amount of personal space needed per occupant, whether or not a person is carrying something 

(such as a child or personal items), the mobility of the person traveling either up or down a flight 

of stairs, and interactions with others in the stair. 

One of the key interactions is merging behavior, the interactions between those in the stair and 

those attempting to enter the stair. While the exact manner in which merging behavior occurs 

may not be well understood [48], a number of studies have observed general trends in stair 

merging. For example, different types of merging are possible. Occupants in the stairs may defer 

to occupants entering the stairs [25, 28, 30]. Occupants on the floors may defer to those already 

in the stair [34]. Finally, neither may defer and the occupants on the floor and those already in 

the stair split evenly. Kagawa, Kose, and Morishita [36] report that there were instances where 

occupants in the stairs would not let occupants from the floors enter and that there were instances 

where occupants entering from the floor caused severe disruptions to the flow in the 
20 

stairs. Boyce et al. [49] report that merging was split between those in the stairs and those on the 

floor, but the ratio depended on occupant speed and landing geometry. Additionally, merging 

behavior can impact stair movement. As occupants merged into the stair, the flow could slow 

down or become stagnant [16].While not studied for this paper, additional analysis of videos 

collected for this study could provide additional data on these deference behaviors. 

2.2.6 Summary

Table 2 summarizes movement speeds reported in the literature, considerably updated from [50]. 

The methods used by the different authors varied significantly. Beyond just differences in the 

types of occupancies being studied, measurement methods varied. Thus, comparison of the data 

is naturally limited in scope. With the exception of several studies of the evacuation in the 110 

floor World Trade Center Towers, the buildings included in the literature review ranges from 

single story buildings to 21 stories in height. Reported speeds ranged from 0.1 m/s to 1.4 m/s and 

occupant densities ranged from 0.5 persons/m2 to 2.6 persons/m2. 

At least three key features of these studies influenced the current study. First, much of the 

literature data is several decades or more old. There has been considerable discussion on the 

applicability of the older data with the assumption that current populations could be slower than 

that represented by the older data. Newly-collected data can be compared with historical data 

partly to assess the applicability of historical data to current building populations. Second, the 

literature data include only buildings up to 21 stories in height. Taller buildings were of 

particular interest. The buildings selected for study included a wide range of building heights. 

Finally, none of the literature studies include data beyond average values or ranges of values. 

With more sophisticated egress models under development, this study endeavors to provide 

detailed data for model development and validation.
21

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond Notes

Actual Events

Averill, et al.2005

L: USA

T: Office Tower 1 Telephone interviews 368 M: 0.2

Two stairwells:

W: 1100One stairwell:

W: 1400

‐ 803 interviewees‐ Interviewees were occupantsfrom floors

10 – 91

‐ Movement speed includes rest

and stopping periods

Shields, Boyce and

McConnell2009

L: USA

T: Office Interviews 6 R: 43 s/flr – 150 s/flr

‐ Participants had self‐identified

mobility impairments prior to the

event‐ Movement speeds were gathered

from data on 5 of the 6 participants

Galea, et al.

2009

L: USA

T: Office Tower 1 Interviews 30 M: 0.29
22

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond Notes

Fire Drills

Pauls1971

L: Canada

T: CommercialBuildingF: Occupants on

floors 1 to 21

Observers 910 R: 0.61– 0.81

RH: 178

TD: 254

W: 1190

‐ 35 occupants used elevators foregress‐ 2 stairwells

Pauls and Jones1980

Building 1T: Office Building

F: 14 floors

Not specified

1526

Above 7th Floor:

Slowest: 0.23 m/s

W: 1140

‐ Total of 5 dogleg stairwells‐ 1453 able‐bodied occupants usedfour of the stairwells

‐ 73 occupants, either disabled or

assisting the disabled, used the fifth

stairwell

Below 7th Floor: M:

0.44

Last Floor:M: 0.66D: 1.38

Building 2T: Office Building

F: 20 floors

‐ Total of 2 dogleg stairwells‐ Observers during steady‐state

conditions descended atapproximately the same rate as

those in Building 1

Proulx1995

L: Canada

T: 4 Residential

Buildings

F: 6 to 7 storieshigh

Video cameras ~340

Of the three

buildings wherespeed could be

measured, occupantspeeds ranged from0.52– 0.62

Children ages 2 – 5

years old:M: 0.45Elderly:M: 0.43

Not specified

‐ Occupants tend to use whichever

staircase they were accustomed to

using regardless of proximity

‐ Occupants tended to move in

groups‐ There was no crowding in the

stairwells during occupants’

descent.
23

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesProulx, et al.1995

L: Canada

Building 1F: 14 floors

Video cameras

29

14 men and 15

women averaged:

1.07 m/s19 group members

averaged:1.0 m/s10 individualsaveraged:1.18 m/s

Not specified

No statistical difference in

movement speeds between men

and women

L: Canada

Building 2F: 14 floors

28 M: 1.05 Not specified

No statistical difference in

movement speeds between men

and women

L: Canada

Building 3F: 12 floors

76

M: 0.95Men descending

stairs:M: 1.05 m/sWomen descendingstairs:M: 0.86 m/s

Not specified

Descending stairs, men moved

statistically faster than women, but

no significance between men and

women movement speeds was

found when comparing results from

all 3 buildings

Proulx, Kaufman,

and Pineau1996

Building 1L: Canada

T: GovernmentF: 7 floors Video Cameras

165 M: 0.78 Not specified Women traveled significantly faster than men (0.81 m/s vs. 0.72 m/s)

Building 2L: Canada

T: GovernmentF: 7 floors

502 M: 0.93 Not specified

Men traveled significantly faster

than women (0.96 m/s vs. 0.90

m/s)

Shields, et al.

1997 F: 5 floors Not specified 276

Behind WheelchairM: 0.33 Not specified 77 % of the building population used one of the two stairwells

located in the building Before Wheelchair M: 1.1
24

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesProulx, et al.1999

L: Canada

F: 13 floors

Not specified 144

M: 0.57R: 0.39 – 1.13

D: 2.05

Not specified

Stairwell 1 – Only

Photoluminescent

Not specified

65 M: 0.72

R: 0.64 – 1.30

D: 1.00

Stairwell 2 – Reduced Emergency

Lighting and Photoluminescent

Not specified

82 M: 0.70

R: 0.41 – 1.14

D: 1.23

Stairwell 3 – Only Reduced

Emergency Lighting

Not specified

101

M: 0.61R: 0.45– 0.84

D: 1.30

Stairwell 4 – Normal Emergency

Lighting

Khisty1985

L: USA

T: 21 dormitoriesF: 3 – 12 floors

Time lapse

photographyand observers

Normal Conditions

Max speed: 0.64 m/s

D: mode: 1.66

median: 1.38

EmergencyConditionsMax speed: 0.70 m/s

D: mode: 1.96

median: 1.40

RH Range: 165 – 190

TH Range: 279 ‐ 305

W Range: 1220 – 2130

‐ 80% of occupants believed there

was a real incident

‐ Flow increased under emergency

conditions (from 0.90 to 1.00

persons/m‐s)
25

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesProulx, et al.2007 F: 11 floors Not specified 1191

Stair: Mean

Speed:

1 0.402 0.573 0.664 0.66

R: 0.17 – 1.87

D: range during

busiest 5 minutes:1.56 – 1.60max: 2.30

W: 1100

‐ Six stairwells total‐ Four stairwells observed‐ Slow speed in stair1 due to

mobility impairments

Hostikka, et al.

2007

T: office building

F: 7 floors

Video camerasand RFID tags 281

For density < 0.5:

~Range: 0.5 – 1.5

For 0.5 < density <

2.5:~Decrease in speedfrom 0.75 – 0.5

Median of fitted

curve: 0.64 m/s

‐ Flow rate range:0.80 – 0.83

persons/m‐s

Not specified

‐ Two of the four egress exits were

blocked by cold smoke

‐ Queues formed when slower

occupants left a path allowing

others to pass and when allowing

other occupants to enter into the

flow‐ No gender difference in speed
26

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond Notes

Normal Conditions

Fruin1987 Video cameras

Indoor StairwellM:Men:

< 30 yrs: 0.98

30 – 50 yrs: 0.81

> 50 yrs: 0.67

Women:

< 30 yrs: 0.70

30 – 50 yrs: 0.60

> 50 yrs: 0.56

RH: 178

TD: 286

Outdoor StairwellM:Men:< 30 yrs: 1.10

30 – 50 yrs: 0.96

> 50 yrs: 0.71

Women:

< 30 yrs: 0.79

30 – 50 yrs: 0.77

> 50 yrs: 0.66

RH: 152

TD: 305

Average speeds increased onoutdoor stairwell
27

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesTanaboriboon andGuyano1991

L: Bangkok,

Thailand Not specified

Stairwell 1M: 0.58R: 0.39 – 0.87

RH: 200

TD: 300

W: 1200

Stairwell 2M: 0.60R: 0.44 – 0.82

RH: 150

TD: 300

W: 3000

Stairwell 3M: 0.61R: 0.44 – 0.82

RH: 140

TD: 300

W: 1200

Stairwell 4M: 0.62R: 0.46 – 0.89

RH: 130

TD: 300

W: 1400

Lee and Lam2006

L: Hong Kong

T: Mass transitrailway stations

Not specified 8642

Mean range: 0.48 –

0.65Unidirectional flow

range: 0.38 – 0.92

Counter flow range:0.29 – 0.93

RH: 160

TD: 310

W: 1940

Ye et al. L: Shanghai T: Subway station Video R: 0.5 – 1.2 RH: 150 TD: 300 W: 3050
28

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesNBS1935 Not specified

Stairwell 1Average flow:

0.60 persons/m‐s

D: 1.33

RH: 191

TD: 286

W: 1900

Stairwell 2Average flow:

1.04 persons/m‐s

D: 2.20

RH: 184

TD: 305

W: 1520

Stairwell 3Average flow:

1.70 persons/m‐s

D: 2.63

RH: 178

TD: 292

W: 914

London TransportBoard1952

L: LondonT: Subway stations Not specified

Free flow speed:

0.98Maximum flow: 1.1

persons/m‐sMaximum flow

speed: 0.67Maximum flowdensity: 1.6

W Range: 1000 ‐ 2000

19 – 23 consecutive

steps or two sets of 12

steps

‐ Flow rate was ~constant for most

densities

‐ Speed was inversely proportional

to density
29

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond Notes

Laboratory Studies

Frantzich1994

F: 2 floors (only 1

floor wasevacuated)

Video cameras

Group speed range:

0.82 – 0.91

Individuals traveled

at 1.0 m/s

Group density range:

2.2 – 2.5

RH: 170

TD: 270

W: 1300

Controlled Conditions

T: Theatre

Not specified R: 0.3 – 1.3

RH: 150

TD: 300

W: 2250

Uncontrolled Conditions, Sampleconsisted of general population

after a theatre performance

Frantzich1996 F: 2 floors (only 1 floor was

evacuated)

Not specified 428

0.69(SD: 0.15)R: 0.27 – 1.09

W: 1300 Sample consisted of students aged

20 – 30 years old with no known

movement disabilities 0.72 (SD: 0.27)

R: 0 – 2.27

W: 900

Boyce, Shields and

Silcock1999

L: UK Not specified

8 0.70

R: 0.45 – 1.10

Not specified

Non‐Disabled

30 0.33

R: 0.11 – 0.70 Not‐Assisted – Disabled, Total

19 0.36 R: 0.13 – 0.70 Not‐Assisted – Disabled, Without Mobility Aid9 0.32 R: 0.11 – 0.49 Not‐Assisted – Disabled, Walking Stick1 0.22 Not‐Assisted – Disabled, Crutches1 0.16 Not‐Assisted – Disabled, Rollator4 0.13

R: 0.11 – 0.23

Assisted – Disabled,
30

Table 2. Summary of stair movement speed literature, continued

Sourcea Building Descriptionb Data Collection Method Sample Size Movement Speedc Stairwell Descriptiond NotesWright, Cook andWebber2001

18

0.3 Smoke Conditions, Normal and Emergency Lighting

Mean range:0.35 – 0.42

Smoke Conditions, Other Lighting

Conditions

Fujiyama and Tyler

2004 Not specified

15

Ages 25 – 60

Normal pace

R: 0.76 – 0.96

Stairwell 1:RH: 185

TD: 230

12 stepsStairwell 2:RH: 175

TD: 250

12 stepsStairwell 3:RH: 157

TD: 267

15 stepsStairwell 4:RH: 152

TD: 332

9 steps

‐ Differences in normal pace speeds

between the two age groups was

not significant

‐ Differences in fast pace speeds

between the two age groups was

significant

Ages 25 – 60

Fast pace

Mean range:1.12 – 1.30

18

Ages 60 – 81

Normal pace

R: 0.60 ‐ 0.88

Ages 60 – 81

Fast pace

Mean range:0.80 – 1.11

a – Author and year

b – L = location, T = building type, F = number of floors

c – M = mean in m/s, R = range in m/s unless otherwise indicated, D = average density in persons / m2 unless otherwise indicated

d – RH = rise height in mm, TD = tread depth in mm, W = stair width in mm
31 

 

2.3 Building Code Provisions on Stair Egress		

As stated earlier, one purpose of this report is to provide data that can form a technical 

foundation for updated building code provisions related to stair egress. This section provides a 

discussion of current code requirements for egress stair design in order to understand the 

important engineering variables that are part of that design. 

Constitutionally, regulation of building construction and maintenance is a state and local 

responsibility in the United States. However, there is significant efficiency achieved by having 

consistency in construction requirements between states or cities. On the other hand, local 

hazards, climate, and construction materials and methods may vary regionally. Thus, a system of 

national model codes has evolved, where each state or local jurisdiction uses the model code as a 

starting point for regulation and may alter certain provisions to suit local conditions. In the 

United States, there are two primary model building codes: the International Building Code ® 

(IBC) [51] and the Life Safety Code ® (LSC) [52]. The code requirements for stair construction 

in both model codes differ modestly and, therefore, both are described below. It is important to 

note that any state or local modifications to the national model codes are not described below. 

Design of stairways for emergency occupant egress encompasses two primary aspects: capacity 

and usability. Capacity requirements ensure that the stairways are sized to allow the prescribed 

number of occupants (often referred to as the design load) to use the stairs in a timely manner. 

Usability requirements, on the other hand, ensure that the stairway construction does not impede 

safe use of the stairway. 

2.3.1 Determination of Stairway Capacity in the National Model Building Codes

Both national model codes, the International Building Code and the Life Safety Code determine 

egress capacity similarly5

. The required width of the stairs is determined by, and proportional to, 

the capacity of the spaces served by the stairways. Using the 2012 values in the International 

Building Code, the width of the required minimum number of stairways may be determined by 

the following four steps: 

1. Calculate the number of persons on a floor. The number of persons is a function of the 

nature of the space usage (for example, business use [one person for every 100 gross 

square feet] versus mercantile use [one person for every 60 gross square feet]) and the 

total floor area6

. Thus, a building with 36000 square feet of space on an upper floor 

would be required to provide stair capacity for 360 persons for an office occupancy or 

600 persons for a mercantile occupancy. 

2. Determine the minimum number of required stairs. The minimum number of required 

stairways is determined by the number of occupants and occupant travel distance. Since a 

 

5

 The discussion of stairway requirements is intended to illustrate common stairway design considerations and 

should not be interpreted as design guidance for any real building design. Requirements for building egress systems 

can vary significantly depending upon specific characteristics of the building; consequently design of stairways 

should only be conducted by licensed professionals and reviewed and approved by an authorized building official. 

6

 In some circumstances, the number of persons using a stair may cumulatively include additional floors when the 

only path of egress travel requires that occupants move through another floor or area served by a particular stair 

access point. 
32 

 

single stairway is not permitted for any structure taller than two stories, two stairways are 

commonly required. A third stairway is required when the occupant load exceeds 500 

persons and a fourth stairway is required when the occupant load exceeds 1000 persons7. 

Additional stairways may also be required if an occupant travel distance from their egress 

starting point and the exit access point exceed specific threshold values. 

3. Using the appropriate capacity factor, determine the total required stair width. The 

number of occupants (Step 1, above) is multiplied by a capacity factor (0.3 inches per 

occupant for use groups without sprinkler and emergency communication voice/alarm 

systems and 0.2 inches per occupant for many [not all] use groups with sprinkler and 

emergency communication voice/alarm systems). For example, stairway capacity for 600 

persons would require a minimum of 180 total inches of stairway width or 120 total 

inches of width for buildings with the requisite sprinkler and alarm systems. 

4. Divide the total required stair width amongst at least the minimum number of required 

stairways. For a floor area with an occupant load of 600 persons (where the total building 

height was 420 feet tall or less), the three required stairways may each be 60 inches wide 

if the building did not have an appropriate sprinkler system and alarm system. Stairways 

may also have differing widths, as long as (a) the loss of one stairway does not eliminate 

more than 50 % of the egress capacity, and (b) each stair is at least 44 inches in width. 

Alternatively, if the building was protected by a sprinkler and alarm system meeting 

certain provisions, the three required stairways would have to provide 120 inches of total 

width. Since the minimum width of a stair serving more than 50 persons is 44 inches, 

three 44 inch stairs would likely be provided. 

The preceding example demonstrates the critical importance of ensuring a sound scientific 

stairway width. Both the IBC and the LSC directly correlate incremental increases in stair width 

with increased capacity. In particular, two thresholds are currently designated for minimum stair 

width in buildings: 44 inch wide stairways as a minimum width in both the IBC and the LSC 

(though only for stairways serving greater than 50 people and less than 2000 people in the LSC) 

and 56 inch wide stairways (for buildings serving equal to or greater than 2000 people in the 

LSC). Therefore, evaluation of the performance of the critical threshold widths, as well as 

various other widths, is important for assessing the efficacy of common building code 

requirements for stairway construction. 

2.3.2 Usability Requirements in the National Model Building Codes

Usability requirements ensure that the stairway construction does not impede safe stairway 

usage. The provisions range from lighting requirements to obstructions, including, but not 

limited to: 

 Minimum ceiling height; 

 Minimum clear width in the stairs; 

 Limits on protrusions from the walls in hallways and landings; 

 

7

 In the IBC, when the building height exceeds 420 feet, either an additional stairway (one more than would 

otherwise be required for a building lower than 421 feet) or occupant evacuation elevators should be provided. 
33 

 

 Handrail requirements, including the size, shape, and continuity of the handrail; 

 Signage indicating the floor number and stairway identifier; 

 Minimum lighting levels, including emergency power or luminescence; 

 Size, direction of swing, and maximum force requirements for stair access and exit doors; 

 Dimensional uniformity of stair edges; 

 Height and depth limits of stair risers/treads8

 Durability and integrity of stairway wall construction; and 

 Size and spacing of landings. 

While usability requirements serve to increase the likelihood that the stairway will perform 

without negative impact on occupant movement, usability requirements are not the primary focus 

of this paper. 

2.4 Egress modeling

As discussed in Chapter 1 of this report, performance-based analysis of building egress is based 

upon the use of analytical tools and simulation models to assess the level of fire safety provided 

by a building design [53, 54]. Performance-based design (PBD) is often based on a comparison 

between the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) and the Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) in 

order to verify the achievement of the desired performance. ASET, calculated via the use of fire 

modeling techniques, is the time after which the untenable conditions of the given building 

develop. RSET, calculated via the use of egress modeling techniques, is the time needed by 

occupants to perform a safe evacuation (i.e., the evacuation time for a building or a section of a 

building). Here, egress modeling techniques include both analytical tools or equations and 

simulation models. 

2.4.1 Analytical tools

Even though a building evacuation consists of both the pre-evacuation and movement periods, 

the analytical tools or equations, to be presented here and often referred to as the Hydraulic 

model [55], focus primarily on the movement period. There is little consideration of the 

behavioral aspects of the movement period, and almost no consideration of the pre-evacuation 

period. 

The first-order or simplified hydraulic model, that will be discussed here, represents a simplified 

approach to calculating evacuation time from a structure. It focuses on the component within the 

building that places the most severe constraint on the flow of people around the building, and 

uses the movement of people through this constraint to determine movement time [55]. Using 

this method, the analyst (i.e., engineer) must calculate the time that occupants take to reach the 

 

8

 The IBC and the LSC (i.e., NFPA 101 ®) state that stair riser heights shall be 178 mm (7 inches) maximum and 

100 mm (4 inches) minimum, and rectangular tread depths shall be 280 mm (11 inches) minimum. The IBC also 

provides specifics on the ways in which to measure these values: the riser heights are measured vertically between 

the nosings of adjacent treads, and the tread depths are measured horizontally between the vertical planes of the 

foremost projection of adjacent treads and at a right angle to the tread’s nosings. 
34 

 

controlling component, the time that occupants take to traverse this component, and then the time 

for the last person to reach safety from the controlling component. The components of the 

hydraulic model are as follows: effective width9, population density, speed, flow characteristics, 

time for passage through a component, and transitions between components. To calculate the 

time that occupants take to reach the controlling component, analysts can use various equations 

available to calculate speed [56]. 

In multi-story buildings, the controlling component may be the entry to the stairs (for example, 

once occupants enter the stairs, it could be assumed they have reached a safe location) or the 

door at the base or bottom of the building’s narrowest stair (for example, the calculation is 

intended to determine when occupants leave the building to a safe area outside the building 

footprint). Therefore, the analyst may be required to calculate the time that it would take building 

occupants to travel to the stairs, travel on the stairs for some distance, and exit through the door 

at the stair exit. 

Based on the work of Fruin [37], Pauls [57], and Predtechenskii and Milinskii [58], the SFPE 

Handbook [59, 60] proposes calculating stair movement speeds for densities between 

0.54 persons/m2

 to 3.8 persons/m2 as a linear function of density. For situations in which the 

density is less than 0.54 persons/m2, the speed at 0.54 persons/m2 is assumed. 

s k akD D    for 0.54 (1) 

where s is the speed of the occupant (m/s) along the line of travel, D is the population density in 

person per unit area, and k and a are constants. For stair travel, these constants change based 

upon rise and tread stair geometry. For example, k is 1.00 m/s for a 190 mm riser and 254 mm 

tread depth, 1.08 m/s for a 178 mm riser and 279 mm tread depth, 1.16 m/s for a 165 mm riser 

and 305 mm tread depth, or 1.23 m/s for a 165 mm riser and 330 mm tread depth. The value of a

is taken to be 0.266 m2/person. 

To calculate the time that occupants take to traverse the controlling component, an equation for 

flow is used. According to the SFPE handbook [59], the time for passage for a group of persons 

to pass a point in an exit route is expressed as the following: 

total

exit

ave

P T

F 

 (2) 

where Ptotal is the total number of people using the exit route, Fave (people/s ) is the mean flow of 

people out the exit route, in this case, a door, and Texit (s) is the total travel time for people to exit 

that particular stair. 

The SFPE Handbook [60] also includes a correlation in terms of a power law fit to the total 

population and effective stair width: 

 

9

 Effective width is defined here as the usable width of a component of a building (e.g., a door). Often, a certain 

distance is subtracted from each side of the component to accommodate body sway during evacuation movement or 

small intrusions into the pathway such as handrails. 
35 

 

b

total ave

eff eff

P F

a

w w

         (3) 

where weff is the effective width of the stairs, and a and b are constants. In the SFPE Handbook, 

values for these constants are a = 0.206 and b = 0.27 [60]. This equation shows that mean 

evacuation flow (per meter of effective stair width) varies in a nonlinear fashion with evacuation 

population (per meter of effective stair width). This relationship allows the analyst to calculate 

the mean flow of people out of the exit route (in this case, the door) based upon knowledge of the 

effective width of the stair and the total population (per effective width) using that stair, to 

calculate the total movement time for a particular stair in the building. 

Finally, to calculate the time for the last person to reach safety from the controlling component, 

the analyst often can use the speed equations presented above, as eq. (1). For most buildings, 

this is either a calculation of speed on a flat surface, or in some cases where the door leads 

directly to the outside. 

2.4.2 Simulation models

To achieve a potentially more realistic evacuation calculation, in comparison with the hydraulic 

model, engineers have looked to evacuation computer models to help assess key aspects of a 

building’s life safety attributes. Currently, there are a number of egress models to choose from, 

each with unique characteristics and specialties. These models can range from an efficient use of 

the hand calculations (thus having the same limitations as the hand calculations) to models that 

have complex equations and occupants with simulated decision-making capabilities. 

The list below, based on Ref. [53], describes the ways in which the current egress models (i.e., 

simulation techniques) vary amongst one another. Table 3 summarizes the following 

characteristics for current egress models. 

1) Model availability – there are a variety of ways in which egress models can be released to the 

public. While a few of them are free, most are made available for some fee (either a one-time 

fee or a yearly rate), and others are proprietary and used only on a consultancy basis. 

2) Modeling method – The modeling sophistication used to calculate evacuation times for 

buildings varies from model to model. On one end of the spectrum, models may simulate 

only the movement period of an evacuation, similar to the models described in 2.4.1; on the 

other end, models may simulate both the movement and behavioral aspects of an evacuation. 

3) Model purpose – The current egress models vary in the types of buildings for which they are 

used, i.e., from high-rise buildings to ships to planes, etc. 

4) Type of grid/structure of the model – Egress models also vary in how they represent the 

geometry of the building or structure. 
36 

 

This is an important distinction to make because Lord et al. [2] has shown that 

differences in building configuration using different grid/structure methods can 

significantly influence results of egress models. Three main categories of grid/structures 

are the following: coarse network models, fine network models, and continuous models 

[61]. Recent studies also investigated the use of a combination of different approaches, 

i.e., hybrid models [62]. These categories represent a different level of resolution in the 

representation of the behaviors of the agents. 

In coarse network models, the building’s floor space is simulated as a network of nodes 

and arcs, representing different parts of the infrastructure. Stairs may be represented as 

individual elements of the network or through a combination of sub-elements. 

The fine network approach represents the space as a grid of uniform cells. The movement 

of the agents is simulated through a series of steps in the cells of the network. This 

permits an improved tracking of the location of the occupants during the stair evacuation 

process. Agents are represented as individual entities with the possibility to simulate local 

and global behavioral factors. 

Continuous models represent the agents using a system of coordinates. These models 

offer the flexibility to simulate occupant behaviors that may be sensitive to the location of 

the occupants on the stairs, orientation and inter-distance among the agents. 

5) Model view of the occupants – Next, the models vary in the ways that they view the 

occupants in the building. If the occupants are viewed globally, then the model views the 

occupants as a homogenous group of people. A model that incorporates the opposite view (or 

individualistic view) can track individuals throughout the simulation and assign them various 

characteristics that can affect their evacuation timing. 

6) Occupants’ view of the building – Additionally, models differ in the ways that occupants in 

the simulation view the building during evacuation. If occupants have a global view of the 

building, then they are assumed to be familiar with all exit paths available; whereas, if 

occupants have an individual view of the building, then they decide the best exit routes based 

upon other factors (e.g., routes that are more familiar to the occupant than others). 

7) Behavior of the occupants – Egress models simulate occupant behavior in different ways. On 

one end of the spectrum, they may be incapable of simulating behavior altogether (i.e., and 

focus only on the movement period of an evacuation), and on the other end of the spectrum, 

they may be capable of simulating human intelligence and learning over time. Models in the 

latter group are rare and not typically used in the analysis of fire evacuation. 

8) Movement of the occupants – The ways in which occupants move throughout the simulated 

building also vary among egress models, based upon the underlying movement algorithms 

embedded into the model. 

For most methods, the main input required by the analyst is generally the unimpeded walking 

speed of the occupants on stairs and the assumptions adopted for the representation of the 
37 

 

geometric layout of the stairs [i.e., type of grid/structure of the model]. Models may either 

employ the hydraulic equations provided by Gwynne and Rosenbaum [59] or adopt a speed 

reduction factor of the unimpeded walking speeds on horizontal egress components [55]. An 

alternative solution adopted by model developers is the use of the same assumptions/algorithms 

adopted for the representation of people movement on horizontal egress components for the case 

of stair evacuations. 

9) Incorporation of fire effects – Some egress models do incorporate the effects of fire into the 

evacuation simulation, and in different ways, and some do not. 

10) The use of computer-aided design (CAD) drawings – Similarly, some egress models allow 

the user to import files from a computer-aided design (CAD) program, or other files 

containing the building layout, into the model, and others do not. 

11) Visualization methods – Egress models also differ on how they visualize the evacuation 

scenario, if at all. Evacuation output from the structure can vary from textual, to graphical 

(either in two dimensions or three). 

12) Validation methods – Finally, egress models vary in the ways that they have been validated; 

i.e., the underlying data in the model are accurate representations of the real world situations. 

A previously published NIST report provides a comprehensive model review of 26 egress 

models and the ways that these models differ on all 12 features previously described [53]. All 26 

models highlighted in reference [53] are categorized by each feature in Table 3. 
38

Table 3. Main features of egress models 

Model Available

to public

Modeling

Method

Purpose Grid/

Structure

Perspective

of M/O

Behaviora Movementa Fire

data

CAD Visual Valid

EVACNET4 Y M‐O 1 C G N UC N N N FD

WAYOUT Y M 5 C G N D N N 2‐D FD

STEPSc Y B 1 F I C, P P, E Y1,2 Y 2,3‐D C,FD,PE

PEDROUTE Y PB 3 C G I D N Y 2,3‐D N

Simulexb Y PB 1 Co. I I ID N Y 2‐D FD,PE, 3P

GridFlow Y PB 1 Co. I I D N Y 2,3‐D FD, PE

FDS+Evacc Y PB 1 Co. I I, C, P ID Y3 N/Y 2,3‐D FD,PE,OM

Pathfinder 2009c Y PB 1 Co. I/G I D,ID N Y 2,3‐D C,FD,PE,OM

SimWalkc Y PB 1,3 Co. I C, P P N Y 2,3‐D FD,PE,3P

PEDFLOWc Y B 1 Co. I C, P ID Y2 Y 2,3‐D PE

PedGoc Y,N1 PB/B 1 F I/I,G I/C, P P,E (CA), C Y2 Y 2,3‐D FD,PE,OM,3P

ASERIc Y B‐RA 1 Co. I C, P ID Y1,2 Y 2,3‐D FD, PE

BldEXOb Y B 1 F I C, P P, E Y1,2 Y 2,3‐D FD,PE,OM,3P

Legionc Y,N1 B 1 Co. I AI, P ID, C Y1 Y 2,3‐D C,FD,PE,3P

SpaceSensorc Y B 3 Co. I C, P C, Ac_K N Y 2,3‐D FD,OM

EPTc Y,N1 B 1 F I AI UC,C Y2 Y 2,3‐D FD

Myriad IIc Y, N1 B 1 C, F, Co. I AI D, UC, IP, Ac_K Y1 Y 2,3‐D PE, 3P

MassMotionc Y, N1 B 1 Co. I/I,G AI,P C N Y 2,3‐D C,FD,PE,OM

PathFinder N1 M 1 F I/G N D N Y 2‐D N

ALLSAFE N1 PB 5 C G I Un_F Y1,2 N 2‐D OM

CRISP N1 B‐RA 1 F I C, P E,D Y3 Y 2,3‐D FD

EGRESS 2002 N1 B 1 F I C, P P,D (CA) Y2 N 2‐D FD

SGEMc N1 PB 1 Co. I I D N Y 2‐D FD,OM

EXIT89c N2 PB 1 C I I/C, P D Y1 N N FD,3P

MASSEgressb N2 B 1 Co. I C, AI C N Y 2,3‐D PE,OM

EvacuatioNZc N2 B 1 C I/I,G I, C, P D, UC Y2 Y 2‐D FD, PE,OM

aOnly the underlying methods used by the algorithm are listed. In some instances users can define other options bModel developers/NIST provided an update on the model’s development in Spring 2009. cModel developers/NIST provided an update on the model’s development in Fall 2010. 
39

Key to Table 3. Availability to the Public: (Y): The model is available to the public for free or a fee, (N1): The company uses the model for 

clients on a consultancy basis, (N2): The model has not yet been released 

Modeling Method: (M): Movement model, (M-O): Movement/optimization models, (PB): Partial Behavioral model, (B): 

Behavioral model, (B-RA): Behavioral model with risk assessment capabilities 

Purpose: (1) Models that can simulate any type of building, (2) Models that specialize in residences, (3) Models that specialize 

in public transport stations, (4) Models that are capable of simulating low-rise buildings (under 15 stories), (5) Models 

that only simulate 1-route/exit of the building. 

Grid/Structure: (C): Coarse network, (F): Fine network, (Co): Continuous Perspective of the model/occupant: (G): Global perspective (aware of all other elements in the model), (I): Individual 

perspective (aware of only the local surroundings). Each model is categorized by both the perspective of the model and of the occupant. If only one entry is listed in this column, both the model and occupant have the same perspective. 

Human behavior: (N): Not considered, (I): Implicit, (C): Conditional or rule-based, (AI): Artificial intelligence, (P): 

Probabilistic 

Movement: (D): Density, (UC): User’s choice, (ID): Inter-person distance, (P): Potential, (E): Emptiness of next grid cell, (C): 

Conditional, (Ac_K): Acquired knowledge, (Un_F): Unimpeded flow, (CA): Cellular automata 

Fire Data: (N): The model cannot incorporate fire data, (Y1): The model can import fire data from another model, (Y2): The 

model allows the user to input specific fire data at certain times throughout the evacuation, (Y3): The model has its 

own simultaneous fire model 

CAD: (N): The model does not allow for importation of CAD drawings, (Y): The model does allow for importation of CAD 

drawings 

Visual: (N): The model does not have visualization capabilities, (2-D): 2-dimension visualization available, (3-D): 3-

dimension visualization available 

Validation: (C): Validation against code requirements, (FD): Validation against fire drills or other people movement 

experiments/trials. (PE): Validation against literature on past experiments (flow rates, etc.), (OM): Validation against 

other models, (3P): Third party validation, (N): No validation work could be found regarding the model 
40 

Although Table 3 shows that most models have performed some form of experimental 

validation, more work is needed. Most model validation is performed by the model developers 

using data that was used to develop the model, older data (i.e., the data used to develop the 

hydraulic model presented earlier), and/or proprietary data not made available to the public. This 

certainly limits validation efforts, and potentially leaves the user wondering if sufficient 

validation exercises have been performed, especially for the specific project for which the model 

is being used. Only in a few cases is third party validation performed. Additionally, validation 

against other models or codes, while it may seem beneficial, is only as good as the codes and 

models against which the results of the models are being compared. Methods that can be used to 

assess the validity of egress models is an active research area and standardization of the process 

is just beginning (see, for example, [63, 64]). 

Table 3 also shows that the egress models use a variety of different methods with which to move 

people throughout the building during the simulation. These movement methods are often based 

in older data, if any data at all, and use a variety of different algorithms, rather than one standard, 

accepted method. This, and the fact that egress models use various methods to represent the 

building configuration (i.e., grid/structure), can lead to differing results in evacuation time, 

leaving the analyst confused as to which egress model is more accurate in its evacuation results. 

Not shown in Table 3 is the onerous burden placed on the analyst to use many of these 

simulation models. All of the egress models shown in Table 3 require a significant amount of 

user input, depending upon the scenario simulated, that requires the user to search for various 

types of evacuation data, which are scarce in number and scope. Even worse, there are sets of 

“special capabilities” simulated in each model, i.e., the simulation of counterflow or elevator 

usage, also not shown in Table 1, for which there are little or no data available. In these cases, 

the analyst should confirm that these capabilities are supported by applicable and sound data. 

Finally, a recent review on the use of egress models for building evacuation studies [65] shows 

that there are specific evacuation behavior that need further experimental studies (and data) in 

order to enhance model capabilities. The first factor is the need for data that investigate the effect 

of fatigue on the stair evacuation process. Given the increasing height of buildings and the 

gradual reduction in the physical ability of the population [66], this appears as a key variable that 

has been largely ignored in egress models. Second, the analysis of occupant interactions during 

stair evacuations is another factor that needs further experimental studies. For instance, the 

understanding of occupant behaviors on stair landings is crucial since it may substantially affect 

egress model predictions of the evacuation process (and subsequent evacuation time 

calculations) given the occurrence of behaviors such as merging, deference/overtaking, etc. [48, 

49]. Third, egress models permit only a general assessment and review of egress strategies that 

involve people with disabilities. In fact, the capabilities of egress models are generally not 

designed to fully represent occupant group dynamics on stairs which involve heterogeneous 

populations, e.g. populations with different characteristics, impairments, occupants using 

different stair evacuation devices (e.g. rescue chairs), etc. To address this issue, further 

experimental data about the impact of the presence of people with disabilities on stair 

evacuations are needed. 
41 

3 Experimental Data Collection and Methods 

Data on people movement on stairs were collected from 14 office and residential building 

evacuations in the United States. The buildings involved in this study ranged from 6 stories to 62 

stories in height. This section includes information on how the video was collected, description 

of how the underlying movement data was extracted from the video, and details of additional 

data obtained on the stair geometry in the buildings. 

3.1 Video Observation Procedures

In this study, data from fire drill evacuations were collected by positioning video cameras out of 

the way of building occupants to record an overhead view of occupant movement in an exit stair 

during an evacuation. In most cases, video cameras were placed on specific floors throughout the 

building to capture a view of that floor’s main landing, the door into the stair at that level, and 2-

6 steps on each side of the main landing (leading to and from the main landing). This camera 

placement captured the times in which the occupant was seen moving past a particular floor 

landing as well as the time when he/she was seen moving into the stairs. 

Figure 2 shows an example of the camera view from one of the buildings in the sample. In this 

particular building’s camera view, the times that the occupants entered the camera view were 

recorded 2-3 steps away from the main landing (leading to the landing), at the landing doorway, 

and 2-3 steps away from the main landing (leading away from the landing), as shown by 

highlighted lines on the steps and at the landing doorway. 

Figure 2. Typical stair landing showing camera view with entry locations for occupant 

movement timing from stairs above, stair entry door, and exit from camera view for one of the 

buildings in the study. 

Figure 3 shows the locations of all cameras throughout each stair in each building in the study. 

The reference point for each stair is the location of the building’s main lobby. This reference 

point is provided in Figure 3 to graphically display instances where evacuees were required to 
42 

travel past (or below) the building’s main lobby floor and therefore, exit the building at a level 

lower than the main lobby level. 

From Figure 3, one can see that video cameras were placed at least every other floor, sometimes 

every floor, in each stair, with the exception of Building 6. Since Building 6 was a 62-story 

building, the number of cameras available for observation made it impossible to place cameras 

on every other floor in all four stairs. Therefore, cameras were placed nominally every 6 floors 

throughout each stair, in addition to locations where the stair configurations changed and 

additional camera observations were necessary; e.g., positioning cameras on floors 22, 23, and 

24 in Stairs 6 and 6a. Details of camera placement are available in Appendix A. 

Before recording began, all video cameras were set to record in “pixelation” mode. Additionally, 

cameras were placed in overhead positions so that the recording of faces was avoided. This 

process made the observation of personally identifiable features (i.e., faces) virtually impossible. 

With that said, NIST observers were still able to track evacuees from one camera location to 

another via other distinguishing evacuee characteristics, e.g., clothing type and color. 

During the evacuation, all videos were digitally recorded onto tapes or directly onto the camera’s 

hard drive. After each evacuation was over, the digital videos were transferred from each of the 

cameras and placed onto a secure server only accessible to the NIST team. On this server, each 

video is labeled by the building number, stair designation, and camera location within that stair. 

No information that would identify the building was attached to any video recorded by NIST. 

3.2 Occupant Data from Video Records

After video data were taken from each building evacuation drill and placed onto NIST’s secure 

server, NIST transcribed specific data from the videos into a spreadsheet format for each stair 

monitored during the drill. For each stair recorded, data were collected 1) for each occupant 

evacuating in that stair and 2) for each time during the evacuation drill that the occupant was 

seen at a specific floor in the stair (a camera position), typically both entering and exiting the 

camera view. A total of 22277 individual measurements for 5249 evacuees in the 30 stairwells 

are included in the data set. 
43 

Building-Stairwell

1-A1-B2-S3-E

3-W

4-A4-B5-A5-B

6-5

6-5a

6-6

6-6a

7-17-37-7

7-12

8-N8-S9-A9-B

10-211-211-3

12-A12-B

13-113-214-114-2

Camera Location

(Floor, Relative to Lobby Level)

Lobby

10

20

30

40

50

60

----------

-----

----------

----------

----------

--------------------

--------------------

----------

----------

-----

----------

----------

----------

----------

Exit Discharge Level

Building Height -----

Figure 3. Camera locations in stairs included in the study. Stair numbering includes the building 

number (assigned chronologically by NIST) and the stair number (A, B, N, S, 1, 2, etc.) as 

described in the building. 
44 

The data collected each time an occupant was seen on a specific camera were the following 

information: 

 The time that he/she was seen entering the camera view and the location at which this 

time was taken. For occupants coming from the floor above, this was often a line 

“drawn” at a specific step leading to the main landing (e.g., four steps away from the 

main landing heading into the camera view). For occupants coming from that floor, into 

the stair, the line “drawn” was placed at the edge of the door to the landing or at the edge 

of the landing leading to the next flight of stairs (i.e., leading down from that floor). 

Figure 2 shows an example visible camera area on a stair landing. 

 The time that he/she was seen leaving the camera view – the exit point. This was often a 

line “drawn” at a specific step leading from the main landing (e.g., two steps away from 

the main landing heading away from the camera view). 

 His/her location on the stair. This includes whether he/she was traveling on the inside, 

outside or the middle of the stair. This variable could change for a given occupant at 

subsequent floors. No information was collected on location outside of camera views. 

 His/her handrail usage. This includes whether he/she was using the inside or outside 

handrail, or both of them at the same time. NIST personnel determined that the individual 

was using the handrail if, at any point while visible on the camera at that floor, the 

occupant placed his or her hand on the handrail. As was the case with the exit lane 

variable, this variable could change for a given occupant at subsequent floors and the 

information on handrail use was only available when visible in a camera. 

Additionally, there were data collected for each occupant (overall) during the evacuation drill. 

These included the following information: 

 Gender. Occupants were classified as being female, male, or unknown. 

 Floor of origin / travel distance. This was recorded as the number of floors since the 

occupant was first seen on the camera. 

 Whether he/she was carrying anything (Yes or No). Whether an individual was carrying 

anything was determined by NIST personnel from the videos. It was assumed that a 

person identified as carrying an object did so throughout the evacuation. There was no 

distinction made for the size of object or how it was being carried. Objects included small 

objects held in one hand, bags on either a shoulder or held in one hand, and backpacks 

that left both hands free. 

 His/her body size. The data input into this column included a) less than 1/2 the stair width 

or b) more than 1/2 the stair width. 

 Whether he/she was in a group at any time during the drill (Yes or No). 

 Whether he/she was helping someone at any time during the drill (Yes or No). 

 Whether he/she was travelling in the opposite direction of the evacuating occupants, here 

termed counterflow. For example, in some buildings, first responders were sent up the 

stairs sharing the stairs with evacuating occupants. 
45 

3.3 Stair Geometry Data

Arguably, the primary data collected for this study was the timing of occupant movement 

traversing the stairs during evacuation. Along with the movement timing, stair geometry 

including distance travelled on the stairs and landings, stair widths, stair tread depth, stair riser 

height, and landing size were measured in all of the buildings to allow calculation of movement 

speed, density, and flow. Figure 4 illustrates the calculation of travel distance within a stair. 

Templer [67] observed individuals and their travel paths in isolation descending stairs. While 

there were marked differences depending on the direction that the stair turned, none of the 

individuals were observed to follow straight-line paths during stair travel. Instead, the paths were 

rounded (arcs) as individuals walked towards the middle of the landing and then towards the 

descending stair. From this, the following equation was used to calculate travel distances on 

landings in the building [68]: 

2

i

i

w L  

 (4) 

Where Li is the travel distance on landing i and wi is the stair width at this location. 

Equation (4) was used to compute the landing distances traveled during stair evacuation. 

Additionally, the diagonal distance traveled along the stairs was also calculated using the stair 

tread riser and depth dimensions. 

Estimated uncertainty of travel speed measurements comes largely from uncertainty in the travel 

path. For this report, we have assumed travel is in the center of the stairs and around the landings 

per eq. (4). Other possible travel paths along the inside or outside of the stair in this sample 

would allow the travel distance for an average building floor to range from approximately 9 m to 

10.5 m. Uncertainty in occupant movement timing collected from video footage is estimated to 

be ± 0.1 s. From this, measurement uncertainty in the calculated speeds is estimated to be ± 0.02 

m/s included as part of the uncertainties shown in Chapter 4, below. For this sample, the 

measurement uncertainty contributes less than 0.5 % to the total variation in measured movement 

speeds for the evacuee population studied. 
46 

Figure 4. Overview of camera view and landing / stair travel distance during stair evacuation 

observations. 

3.4 Buildings Included in the Study

Table 4 shows a summary of the buildings included in the study. The following sections provide 

details of each of the buildings. Details of travel distances, number of steps between floors, and 

additional horizontal paths in the egress path are included in Appendix A. 
47

Table 4. Buildings included in the current study 

Building Location (year) Building Type Stories Above Exit Discharge Stair / evacueesq Stair Width (mm) Flights / Steps per Floor (typical) Tread Depth / Tread Rise (mm) Counter‐ flow Stair Travel Device

1 East Coast (2005) Office 6 A / 126 1440 / 1130 2 /16 280 / 200

B / 108 1540 / 1230 2 /16a 280 / 200 Yes Yes

2 Midwest (2007) Education 11 S / 117 1270 / 965b 2 / 20b 240 / 1903 East Coast (2005) Office 13 E / 116 1120 / 810 2 /18 310 / 170

W / 84 1120 / 810 2 /18 310 / 170

4 West Coast (2008) Office 24c A / 246 1120 / 810 2 / 20 280 / 180 Yes

B / 321 1120 / 810 2 / 20 280 / 180

5 West Coast (2008) Office 10

A / 384 1270 / 965 2 /22d 280 / 180

B / 350 1270 / 965 2 / 22d 280 / 180 Yes

6 West Coast (2008) Office 62

5 / 112 1040 / 880e 2 / 22 250 / 200

5A / 149 1030 / 880f 2 / 22 250 / 200

6 / 117 1040 / 880 2 / 22 250 / 200

6A / 217 1040 / 880 2 / 22 250 / 200

7 East Coast (2008) Office 18i

1 / 264 1120 / 810 2 / 16i 250 / 1903 / 291 1120 / 810 2 / 16 250 / 1907 / 262 1120 / 810 2 / 16 250 / 190 Yes

12 / 181 1120 / 810 2 / 16 250 / 190 Yes

8 East Coast (2008) Office 30j,k

N / 676 1380 / 1070 2 / 18 270 / 180

S / 483 1380 / 1070 2 / 18 270 / 180

9 East Coast (2009) Residential 13 1 / 69 1370 / 1070 2 / 18 320 / 150 Yes Yes

2 / 56 1370 / 1070 2 / 18l 320 / 150 Yes Yes

10 East Coast (2010) Residential (assisted) 6 2 / 45 1120 / 950 2 / 18l 305 / 165 Yes Yes11 West Coast (2010) Courthouse 22m 2 / 77 1270 / 1170

4 / 36m 280 / 180

3 / 83 1180 / 1070

4 / 36m 280 / 180 Yes
48

Table 4, continued

Building Location (year) Building Type Stories Above Exit Discharge Stair / evacuees Stair Width (mm) Flights / Steps per Floor Tread Depth / Tread Rise (mm) Counter‐ flow Stair Travel Device

12 East Coast (2011) Office 6 A / 61 1120 / 1040 2 / 20n 290 / 180 B / 12 1120 / 1040 2 / 20n 290 / 18013 East Coast (2011) Residential 15j,o 1 / 35 1120 / 980 2 / 16o 300 / 170 Yes 2 / 39 1120 / 980 2 / 16o 300 / 17014 Midwest (2011) Courthouse 21p 1 / 157 1060 / 920 6 / 32p 300 / 170 Yes 2 / 100 1040 / 900 6 / 32p 300 / 170

a – Stair B had a total of 16 steps between floor 2 and floor 1 with 10 steps down from floor 2 to a mid‐landing and an 6 additional steps from the

mid‐landing down to floor 1.b – Stair width increased to 1680 mm / 1370 mm from floor 3 landing down to floor 1. Steps per floor increased to 22 from floor 3 landing down to

floor 1.c – Stair A terminated at the main building lobby on floor 2. Stair B exited directly to the outdoors at the rear of the building on floor 1.

d – In both stairs, there were a total of 27 steps between floor 2 and floor 1 with a mid‐landing 13 steps down from floor 2 and an additional 13

steps from the mid‐landing down to floor 1.

e – Stair 5 had 2 flights with a total of 34 steps between floors 44 and 43, 3 flights per floor with a total of 34 steps per floor between floors 43 to

41 and between floors 24 to 21, 5 flights with a total of 33 steps between floors 4 and 3, 6 flights with a total of 36 steps between floors 3 and 2,

and 5 flights with a total of 37 steps between floor 2 and 1. Stair 5 had transfer hallways on floor 42, at a landing between 42 and 41, floor 22, at a

landing between floor 22 and 21, and floor 4.

f – Stair 5A had 3 flights per floor with a total of 46 steps per floor between floors 44 to 42 and between floors 24 to 22, 4 flights with a total of 22

steps between floors 5 and 4, 5 flights with a total of 39 steps between floors 4 and 3, 6 flights with a total of 36 steps between floors 3 and 2, and

5 flights with a total of 31 steps between floors 2 and 1. Stair 5A had transfer hallways on floors 42, 22, and 4.

g – Stair 6 had 2 flights with a total of 14 steps between floors 45 and 44, 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 44 and 43, 5 flights with

a total of 33 steps between floors 43 and 42, 2 flights with a total of 13 steps between floors 25 and 24, 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between

floors 24 and 23, 3 flights with a total of 24 steps between floors 32 and 22, 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 22 and 21, 2 flights

with a total of 31 steps between floors 6 and 5, 5 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 5 and 4, 3 flights with a total of 24 steps between

floors 4 and 3, 4 flights with a total of 24 steps between floors 3 and 2, and 4 flights with a total of 23 steps between floors 2 and 1. Stair 6 had

transfer hallways on floors 44, 24, 22, and 4.

h – Stair 6A had 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 44 and 43, 5 flights with a total of 33 steps between floors 43 and 42, 2 flights with

a total of 13 steps between floors 25 and 24, 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 24 and 23, 3 flights with a total of 24 steps between

floors 23 and 22, 4 flights with a total of 22 steps between floors 22 and 21, 2 flights with a total of 31 steps between floors 6 and 5, 5 flights with

total of 22 steps between floors 5 and 4, 2 flights with a total of 24 steps between floor 4 and 3, 4 flights with a total of 24 steps between floors 3

and 2, and 3 flights with a total of 23 steps between floors 2 and 1. Stair 6A had transfer hallways on floors 44, 24, 23, 20, and 4.
49

i – Stairs 3, 7, and 12 exited at the main floor lobby at floor 5. Stair 1 exited directly to the outdoors at the rear of the building on floor 1. Stair 1

had two flights with a total of 18 steps between floors 4 and 3 and between floors 2 and 1. Stairs 3, 7, and 12 had 2 flights with a total of 19 steps

between floors 6 and 5.

j – Building did not have a 13th floor. Building height adjusted to total floors above the main exit discharge.

k – The North stair had 2 flights with a total of 16 steps between floors 4 and 3 and 3 flights with a total of 27 steps between floors 3 and 2. The

South stair had 3 flights with a total of 32 steps between floors 4 and 3 and 3 flights with a total of 27 steps between floors 3 and 2. There were

transfer hallways in both stairs between floors 4 and 3.

l – Both stairs had 3 flights with a total of 27 steps between floors 2 and 1.

m – Stair 2 terminated at floor 2. Stair 3 terminated at floor 1. Both stairs had 2 flights per floor with a total of 24 steps per floor between floors 7

and 2. Stair 3 had 3 flights with a total of 25 steps between floors 2 and1.

n – Stair A had 3 flights with a total of 35 steps between floors 2 and 1. Stair B had 3 flights with a total of 32 steps between floors 2 and 1.

o – Stair 1 terminated at floor T1, one level below the main building lobby. Stair 2 terminated at the opposite end of the building at floor T2, two

levels below the main building lobby. Both stairs had 2 flights with a total of 21 steps between floors 1 and T1. Stair 2 has 2 flights with a total of

16 steps between floors T1 and T2.

p – Stair 1 terminated at floor T3, three levels below the main building lobby. Stair 2 terminated at floor 1 directly to the outside of the building.

Both stairs had 3 flights with a total of 22 steps from floors 21 to 20 and 6 flights with a total of 40 steps between floors 20 and 7. Stair 1 had 3

flights with a total of 23 steps between floors 7 and 6, 3 flights with a total of 22 steps between floor 6 and 5, 3 flights per floor with a total of 23

steps per floor between floors 5 and 3, 3 flights with a total of 22 steps between floor 3 and 2, 6 flights with a total of 32 steps between floors 2

and 1, 3 flights with a total of 32 steps between floors 1 and T1, 4 flights with a total of 32 steps between floors T1 and T2, and 5 flights with a

total of 31 steps between floors T2 and T3. Stair 2 had 3 flights per floor with a total of 23 steps per floor between floors 7 and 2 and 2 flights with

a total of 32 steps between floors 2 and 1.

q – Overall count includes only that evacuees who travelled down at least one floor and exited the building at the exit floor for the stairwell. First

responder counterflow, partial evacuation, or those with building responsibility who monitored the evacuation are not included in the count.
50 

3.4.1 Building 1

Building 1 is a six-story office building with seven wings located on the East Coast of the United 

States. Each wing is shaped like a large rectangle. The lengths of the wings are all adjoining and 

parallel to each other, forming an even larger rectangle. The occupants of the building participate 

in full-building evacuations twice a year. On a typical day, the building houses as many as 9000 

people. 

The building has 14 stairs that exit into building lobbies that then exit to the outside on the 

ground floor. During the drill, NIST collected data from two of these stairs. The stairs were in 

separate, neighboring wings. The wings observed were mirror images of each other, with the 

same number of elevators, stairs, and exterior exit doors. The stairs in each wing were equally 

accessible from all rooms and floors. Both stairs deposited occupants into a lobby through a set 

of double doors. 

A total of 9 camera locations were included in the two stairs observed. In Stair A, cameras were 

located at the main landings on floors 1, 2, 3, and 5. In Stair B, cameras were located at the main 

landing on floor 1, and on intermediate landings at floors 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 5.5. 

The unannounced10 full-building evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the 

summer of 2005 during normal business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during 

the drill. There were 272 participants in the evacuation in the two stairs (129 in Stair A and 143 

in Stair B; however, a total of 126 in Stair A and 108 in Stair B fully evacuated the building)11. 

During the drill, two groups of three firefighters each travelled up Stair B to floor 5. 

3.4.2 Building 2

Building 2 is an 11-story educational building located in the Midwest of the United States. The 

building was equipped with classrooms and a library, as well as office spaces. A corridor 

encircled the building with offices on the outside of the corridors and classrooms or laboratories 

on the inside. The building elevators are located on one end of the building with an adjacent 

corner stair. A second stair was located diagonally opposite the first stair. Classrooms and an 

assembly space were located on the first three floors of the building. 

NIST observed both stairs. However, all but six of the occupants used the stair nearest to the 

building elevators. This stair was designated as the South stair and is the only one analyzed for 

this report. 

 

10 Unannounced drill: The occupants were made aware of the evacuation drill only by the sound of the fire alarm. 

Announced drill: The occupants were made aware of the drill ahead of time but typically were not informed of the 

specific time of the drill. 

11 The overall count of participants includes those building occupants who took part in the evacuation travelling 

down the stairs to the building exit (here termed “fully evacuated”) plus those with building responsibilities who 

monitored the evacuation but did not travel down the stairs to the exit plus any evacuees who did not travel the full 

distance to the exit at the base of the stairs. 
51 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from seven camera locations. Cameras were located 

at the main landings on floors 1, 2, 4, and 6, and at the mid-landings on floors 2.5, 7.5, and 9.5. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the fall of 2007 during normal business 

hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 128 participants in 

the unannounced full building evacuation in the South stair (a total of 117 in the South Stair fully 

evacuated the building). 

3.4.3 Building 3		

Building 3 is a 13-story office building located on the East Coast of the United States with 11 

occupied floors above ground. The occupants of this building perform yearly full-building 

evacuation drills. On a typical day, the building population is approximately 375 people. 

During the drill, evacuation from two stairs was observed (the East stair and the West stair). The 

stairs were equally accessible from all floors in the building. In both stairs, occupants exited 

from the stairs on the ground floor level (floor 1). 

The unannounced evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the fall of 2005 during 

normal business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 

226 participants in the unannounced full building evacuation in the two stairs (125 in the East 

Stair and 101 in the West Stair; however, a total of 116 in the East Stair and 84 in the West Stair 

fully evacuated the building). 

3.4.4 Building 4

Building 4 is a 24-story office building. The occupants in this building perform yearly staged 

evacuation drills; however, they participate in a full-building evacuation drill every five years. 

On a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 1500 people. 

The building has two stairs; Stairs A and B. Stair A exits onto the 2nd floor lobby where 

occupants must travel through the lobby to exit the building. Stair B exits directly to the outside 

on the ground floor (Floor 1). 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 23 different camera locations in the two stairs 

observed. In Stair A, 11 cameras were placed on every other floor beginning at the exit floor 

(Floor 2) and ending with Floor 22. Stair B, 12 cameras were placed every other floor beginning 

at the exit floor and then continuing on every other even floor from Floor 2 to Floor 22. NIST 

observed people movement in both Stairs A and B. 

The unannounced evacuation drill took place in the spring months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 621 

participants in the two monitored stairs in the full building evacuation drill (257 in Stair A and 

364 in Stair B; however, a total of 246 in Stair A and 321 in Stair B fully evacuated the 
52 

building). During the drill, three firefighters travelled up Stair A to the 13th floor approximately 

1.5 minutes into the evacuation drill. Also before the drill, firefighters were staged in the stairs 

on selected floor landings and began floor searches to ensure that all occupants evacuated as 

soon as the alarm sounded. 

3.4.5 Building 5

Building 5 is a 10-story office building. The occupants in this building practice yearly fullbuilding evacuation drills. On a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 

1000 people. 

The building has two stairs; Stairs A and B, both of which exit directly out of the building on the 

first (or ground) floor. 

NIST collected data from 10 camera locations in the two stairs observed. In both stairs, cameras 

were located on main landings beginning with the exit floor (floor 1) and then continuing every 

other odd numbered floor from floor 3 to floor 9. NIST observed people movement in both Stairs 

A and B. 

The unannounced full building evacuation drill took place in the spring months of 2008 during 

normal business house (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 

807 participants in the drill (436 in Stair A and 371 in Stair B; however, a total of 384 in Stair A 

and 350 in Stair B fully evacuated the building). During the drill, six firefighters travelled up 

Stair B to the 7th floor approximately 8 to 11 minutes into the evacuation drill; i.e., when the 

drill was almost completed. Also during the drill, firefighters assigned to specific floors began 

floor searches to ensure that all occupants evacuated as soon as the alarm sounded. 

3.4.6 Building 6

Building 6 is a 62-story office building on the West Coast of the United States. On a typical day, 

the building houses a population of approximately 2800 people, 2/3 of which are below the 30th 

floor. The subdivision of office space varies from floor to floor. 

The building has four main stairs available for egress (numbered 5, 5-A, 6, and 6-A). Two of the 

stairs share a common shaft. There are transfer hallways in the buildings that route the egress 

stairs around mechanical spaces. Occupant movement was observed in all four stairs; Stair 5 

(which served floors up to floor 52), Stair 5A, and the two stairs that shared a common shaft, 

Stair 6 and Stair 6A (which served floors up to floor 52). For floors 52 and above, there are only 

two stairs (stairs 5A and 6). At the time of the drill, there were no occupants above floor 54. 

Data were collected from a total of 42 camera locations in the four stairs. Cameras were placed 

several floors apart in the four different stairs. Camera locations are shown below. 

 Stair 5: Floors 1, 7 13, 20, 30, 36, 44, 51 
53 

 Stair 5A: Floors 1, 7, 12, 26, 34, 40 

 Stair 6: Floors: 1, 4, 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 24.5, 28, 34, 40, 46, 51, 54 

 Stair 6A: Floors 1, 4, 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 24.5, 28, 34, 40, 46, 51, 54 

The announced drill took place on a 2008 spring morning during regular working hours before 

lunch. There was no precipitation during the drill. There were a total of 607 participants 

observed over the approximately 20 minutes duration of the voluntary drill. A total of 595 people 

fully evacuated the building, with 112 in Stair 5, 149 in Stair 5A, 117 in Stair 6, and 217 in Stair 

6A. 

3.4.7 Building 7

Building 7 is an 18-story office building housed in three wings adjoining a fourth corridor at one 

end of the wings. The building houses approximately 4000 people and has twelve stairs available 

for egress, numbered one through twelve. In Building 7, there have been small fires and other 

incidents in the past that initiated the building alarm. Additionally, the building practices fire 

drills on a yearly basis. Within the year before the observed drill, the local fire department noted 

one intentional alarm that initiated a building evacuation and one small fire that also initiated a 

building evacuation without injury to the occupants. 

Occupants were observed in four of the 12 stairs; specifically Stairs 1, 3, 7, and 12. These stairs 

were observed due to their placement in the building – in order to observe stairs from each of the 

wings in the building. This building is situated on a hill so that the lobby of the building is on the 

5th floor and the actual exit for Stair 1 is five floors below on the opposite (downhill) side of the 

building at ground level (floor 1). Stair 1 exited directly out of the building. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 30 different camera locations in the four stairs 

observed. In Stairs 3, 7, and 12, 7 cameras were placed every other floor beginning at the exit 

floor (Floor 5) and ending with Floor 17. In Stair 1, 9 cameras were placed every other floor 

beginning at the exit floor (Floor 1) and ending with Floor 17. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place in the spring months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. Within the four stairs 

observed, there were 1168 participants in the unannounced full building evacuation drill (286 in 

Stair 1, 312 in Stair 3, 373 in Stair 7, and 197 in Stair 12; however a total of 239+2512 in Stair 1, 

291 in Stair 3, 262 in Stair 7, and 181 in Stair 12 fully evacuated the building). 

During the drill, a total of 17 firefighters travelled up Stair 12 from the 5th floor to the 12th floor; 

one group of seven firefighters were followed by another group of ten. Also, the local area 

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members stood at the entrance to Stair 2 and 

relayed to building occupants that Stair 2 was blocked and they needed to find another stair 

(likely causing a higher number of occupants to use the stairs near Stair 2 - Stairs 1 and 3 - than 

 

12 25 occupants using Stair 1 exited at the building lobby (on the 5th floor) rather than continuing down to the actual 

exit for the stair at the ground floor (floor 1). 
54 

normally expected during an evacuation). Last, a person from the CERT team evacuated via Stair 

7 assisted by three members of the fire department using a stair travel device. 

3.4.8 Building 8

Building 8 is a 30-story office building on the East Coast of the United States (although the 

floors above ground are numbered up to 31; i.e., without a floor numbered as the 13th floor). On 

a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 2100 people. 

The building has two stairs (North and South, designated N and S here) that both exit on the 2nd

floor onto the street level. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 30 different camera locations in the two stairs 

observed. In both stairs, cameras were placed on floors 30 to 14 (every other floor), 11, 9, 7, 5, 4, 

and 2. Cameras were placed on odd floors between floors 11 to 5 because the building did not 

have a 13th floor. Cameras were also placed on even floors at the base of the stair (Floors 2 and 

4) since Floor 2 was the exit level. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place in the fall months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. The full-scale, 

simultaneous building evacuation was unannounced. Additionally, the elevators were not 

available for the population to use during the drill. Only people with disabilities were able to use 

the elevators for evacuation, and only the freight elevator was available for their use. Overall, 

there were 1218 participants in this evacuation drill (685 in the North Stair and 533 in the South 

stair; however, a total of 676 in the North Stair and 483 in the South stair fully evacuated the 

building). 

3.4.9 Building 9

Building 9 is a 13-story residential building on the East Coast of the United States that contains 

175 living units. The building is designated for older adults with a typical population of 

approximately 200 residents. 

The building has two stairs, Stairs 1 and 2, both of which exit directly out of the building on 

ground floor. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 14 different camera locations in the two stairs. 

Cameras were placed on the ground (exit) floor and on floors 1 (one floor above ground level), 3, 

5, 7, 9, and 11 in both stairs. 

The announced, mandatory evacuation drill took place in the fall of 2009 in the morning (before 

noon). There was no precipitation during the drill. Building management made a decision to 

announce this evacuation drill so that building occupants would not be upset by the drill and 
55 

instead, be ready and prepared to take part. The evacuation scenario used for the drill was a gas 

leak near the building, which rendered the elevators inoperable for egress. 

The drill lasted for 75 min; however, video cameras were only able to capture 56 minutes of the 

evacuation. In the building, 71 people participated in Stair 1 and 56 people in Stair 2; however, a 

total of 69 in Stair 1 and 56 in Stair 2 fully evacuated the building). These numbers include all 

evacuees of the building and building staff that were either evacuating themselves or assisting 

residents; however, these numbers do not include firefighters assisting evacuees. 

Throughout the drill, firefighters from various local fire stations arrived on scene and assisted 

building occupants down the stairs. Firefighters did interact briefly with evacuating occupants 

inside the stairs; however, when this would occur, the evacuating occupants were given priority 

(i.e., firefighters would step aside and allow evacuating occupants to pass by). Building 

occupants evacuated via the stairs on their own, with some assistance from firefighters or other 

occupants, or via stair travel devices guided by firefighters13. A total of 45 firefighters from 8 

different companies and additional support personnel were deployed for this evacuation drill and 

used this drill as a training opportunity on how to evacuate occupants with mobility impairments 

using one type of stair travel device. Staff members assisted some occupants; however, 

firefighters assisted evacuees in stair travel devices. 

3.4.10 Building 10

Building 10 is a six-story residential building on the East Coast of the United States containing 

133 living units. The building is designated as an assisted living facility for older adults. 

Occupants evacuated in one of the three stairs that exit to the ground floor. Due to technical 

difficulties, only two of the three could be monitored (Stair 2 and Stair 3). However, the majority 

of the residents evacuated via stair 2 during the drill. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 12 different cameras locations, with cameras 

placed on every floor of Stair 2 and Stair 3. 

The building evacuation drill began around 10 am in the Fall of 2010. There was no precipitation 

during the drill. Firefighters and staff members knocked on the doors of residents who 

volunteered to participate in the evacuation. Building management decided to announce this drill 

and not sound the alarm so that older occupants who did not volunteer would remain calm. The 

exercise scenario was flooding in the basement from a water main break. In the scenario, water 

filled the elevator pits and approached the main mechanical room, thus rendering the elevators 

inoperable. If the flood persisted, the water would reach the electric panels and require all power 

to be shut down. Therefore, management chose to evacuate residents from the building via stairs. 

The video cameras captured 50 minutes of the evacuation, which was cut short due to time 

 

13 Stair travel devices were used to assist individuals with mobility impairments down the stairs. The chairs were 

escorted by two to three firefighters at any one time. The type of stair travel device used was one in which the 

individual sits upright on landings, and is tilted slightly back on stairs so that the chair may slide on the diagonal of 

the steps with ease. The specifics about chair manufacturer are not discussed in this paper. 
56 

constraints of the training exercise (i.e., not all residents evacuated the building). Throughout the 

drill, firefighters from different companies as well as support personnel arrived on scene to help 

building occupants travel down the stairs. Residents evacuated via the stairs on their own, with a 

cane, with assistance from firefighters or other occupants, or by stair travel devices. The 

firefighters used this drill as a training opportunity for evacuating mobility-impaired individuals 

on stair travel devices. 

In the six-story building, 47 residents were evacuated, with 45 in Stair 2 and 2 in Stair 3. The 

reason for the difference in stair usage was because the firefighters designated Stair 2 as their 

main evacuation stair, using it almost exclusively for evacuation, while the other two stairs were 

used to carry vacant stair travel devices back up to waiting residents. In Stair 2, two occupants on 

stair travel devices were transferred from Stair 2 to Stair 3 because of slight congestion. These 

numbers do not include firefighters assisting evacuees. Only those residents in Stair 2 are 

included in the analysis in this report. 

3.4.11 Building 11

Building 11 is a 22-story office (courthouse) building on the West Coast of the United States. On 

a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 600 people. 

This building has 22 stories, 19 of which are occupied, and has four stairways for evacuation. 

Two exit stairs, Stairs 1 and 2 are public stairs that provide access from floor 18 (Stair 2) or 19 

(Stair 3) to the exit (either the lobby or the basement floor exit). The other two exit stairs, Stairs 

3 and 4, are secured stairs. Stair 3 provides access to all occupied floors. Stair 4 services floors 7 

to 1. During the evacuation, NIST set up video cameras in two of the four exit stairs, specifically 

Stairs 2 and 3, to capture people movement on exit stairways and through stair/exit doors. 

Data were collected from 19 different camera locations in the two stairs observed. In Stair 2, 

cameras were placed on every even floor starting with floor 18 down to floor 2 (for a total of 9 

cameras), and in Stair 3, cameras were placed on every odd floor beginning at floor 19 and 

ending at floor 1 (for a total of 10 cameras). 

The evacuation drill took place in the fall months of 2010 during normal business hours (before 

lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 224 participants in the 

unannounced full building evacuation drill (135 in Stair 2 and 89 in Stair 3; however, a total of 

77 in Stair 2 and 83 in Stair 3 fully evacuated the building). During the drill, an individual from 

the 11th floor was evacuated via a stair travel device in Stair 3. 

3.4.12 Building 12

Building 12 is a 6-story office building located on the East Coast of the United States. 

The building has two stairs, Stair A and Stair B. Both stairs serve all six floors of the building 

and exit at the first floor. 
57 

On the day of the drill, cameras were placed at every floor of both stairs to capture a view of 

each floor’s main landings. The camera also recorded the time in which people moved through 

the space (i.e. when people enter and exit landings). NIST observed people movement in both 

stairs. 

The unannounced full-building evacuation drill took place in the spring of 2011 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. 76 occupants were 

observed in the two monitored stairs during the evacuation (64 in Stair A and 12 in Stair B; 

however, a total of 61 in Stair A and 12 in Stair B fully evacuated the building). 

3.4.13 Building 13

Building 13 is a 15-story residential high-rise building on the East Coast of the United States 

(although the floors above ground are numbered up to 16; i.e., without a floor numbered as the 

13th floor). The building contains 203 living units as well as a commercial space on the T1 level 

of the building. 

The building has two stairs, Stairs 1 and 2. Stair 1 ends at the T1 level (one level underground in 

reference to the building’s front entrance) and Stair 2 ends at the T2 level (two levels 

underground in reference to the building’s front entrance). The building was built on a hill that 

allowed for three separate exits levels. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 18 different camera locations in the two stairs. 

In Stair 2, cameras were located at level T1 (one floor underground; the exit level), every other 

floor from floor 1 up to floor 9, and floors 10, 12, and 15 (actually the 14th floor above ground so 

cameras were placed every other floor). In Stair 2, cameras were located on floor T2 (two level 

underground, the exit level), floor 1, and every other floor from floor 2 to 15. 

The announced, voluntary evacuation drill took place in the spring of 2011 in the morning 

(before noon). There was no precipitation during the drill. Building management made a decision 

to announce this evacuation drill so that building occupants would not be upset by the drill and 

instead, be ready and prepared to take part. The evacuation scenario used for the drill was a fire 

scenario in the building which would require a full building evacuation. When the fire alarm 

sounded, most building occupants evacuated via the stairs on their own. The fire department was 

also present for the evacuation drill, and evacuated one occupant using a stair travel device. 

In the 15-story building, 36 people evacuated in Stair 1 and 39 people in Stair 2 without 

assistance; however, a total of 35 in Stair 1 and 39 in Stair 2 fully evacuated the building. 

Additionally firefighters assisted one additional occupant in a stair travel device in Stair 1; these 

numbers do not include firefighters assisting evacuees. 

 
58 

3.4.14 Building 14

Building 14 is a 21-story office (courthouse) building in the Midwest of the United States. On a 

typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 600 people. 

This building has 21 stories above ground and three main stairways for evacuation. Two exit 

stairs, Stairs 1 and 2 are public stairs that provide access from floor 21 to the exit (either the 

lobby or the lower level 3 floor exits since Stair 2 exits on the rear of the building, three floors 

below the grade in the front of the building). The third exit stair, Stair 3, is secured. Stair 3 

provides access to all floors. Additional stairs in the building include a number of convenience 

stairs that connect adjacent floors but do not travel the full height of the building and stairs used 

for egress of below grade levels (Stairs 4 and 5). NIST collected data from Stairs 1 and 2. Both 

stairs have a unique triangular configuration for the above-ground floors. Additional details of 

the stairwells are available in Appendix A. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 23 different camera locations in the two stairs. 

In Stair 1, 12 cameras were placed on every other floor from L3 up to 20. In Stair 2, cameras 

were placed on floor 1 (the exit floor) and every other floor from floor 2 up to 20. 

The unannounced evacuation drill took place in the fall of 2011 during normal business hours 

(before lunch). There was no precipitation during the drill. There were 305 participants in the 

two monitored stairs (175 in Stair 1 and 130 in Stair 2; however, a total of 157 in Stair 1 and 100 

in Stair 2 fully evacuated the building). 
59 

4 Overall Results 

NIST observed 14 full building evacuations of both office and residential occupancies to provide 

quantification of evacuee movement and better understanding of behavior during egress. From 

the 14 buildings, a total of 30 stairwells were observed in the study. The data collected and 

analyzed from these stairwells, available on the NIST website at http://www.nist.gov/el/ 

fire_research /egress.cfm, is a primary output of this research and is intended as a resource for 

engineers and model developers. This section provides a discussion of the calculations of 

movement timing, speed, and density and presents the overall results of these calculations. 

Detailed analyses of the results is included in section 5.

4.1 Calculations

This section details calculations performed on the data collected from the video tapes. These 

calculations facilitated a consistent analysis of the data to better understand occupant movement 

during the stair evacuations. The analysis included translation of the recorded data to a set of 

observation times for each evacuee as they entered, traversed, and exited a stair relative to the 

timing of an initial alarm for the drill, calculations to quantify overall and local movement speeds 

and flows, determination of occupant density in the stairs, and statistical analyses of the data to 

understand the relative impact of various occupant and stair characteristics on these calculated 

values. Appendices B through D include additional details about the calculations and associated 

uncertainty analyses. 

4.1.1 Occupant Movement Timing

The timing of each evacuee at each camera location (both entering and leaving the camera view) 

was transcribed directly from video records. To allow for comparison and calculation, these 

times were converted to times relative to the building fire alarm signaling the beginning of the 

evacuation. The converted times were used in all subsequent analyses. 

4.1.2 Pre‐Observation Delay

Pre-observation delay was defined for each occupant as the time from the initial alarm until the 

occupant was seen entering the stair to evacuate the building. Occupants who entered the stair 

between camera locations were not included in calculated mean values since they had to descend 

at least one floor in the stair prior to entering a camera view. In general, pre-observation delay is 

expected to be a longer time than the typical pre-evacuation delay time, since it includes time for 

movement to the stair in addition to the time for the performance of any activities. 

4.1.3 Travel Time

Travel times are defined as the elapsed time between observations points. For consistency, the 

start time for all occupants was taken to be the time they left the view of the highest camera 

location for that occupant (i.e., a camera exit point). Thus for occupants who entered the stair 

between camera locations, there is some period of time not captured before they enter the first 
60 

camera location. “Overall travel time” in a stair is the difference between this start time and the 

time the occupant left the stair at the lowest camera location (a stop time). For the calculation of 

local speeds, the time interval between successive camera locations was used to calculate a local 

travel time. Again, start and stop times were typically taken as the time the occupant was seen 

leaving successive camera locations. 

4.1.4 Movement Speed

Overall movement speed for each occupant was determined from the total travel distance (from 

where he/she entered the stairwell to the exit at the bottom of the stairwell) divided by the 

difference between entry and exit times. Overall speeds for occupants who left the stairwell prior 

to the exit or who waited an excessive amount of time on the entry floor (typically floor wardens 

or others with building responsibility) were not included in the overall speed calculations. For 

mean speeds and associated uncertainties, the mean values are calculated using a harmonic mean 

(which accounts for occupants in different stairs and starting at different floors, each traveling 

over a fixed distance) rather than a simple arithmetic mean14. Appendix B includes details of the 

calculation of mean speeds and their associated uncertainties. 

Local speeds typically represent the speeds of evacuees between “exit” points designated in 

successive camera views. Where cameras were placed on every floor, the distance between exit

points included two flights of steps and two landings. Where cameras were placed farther apart, 

the distance used for the local speed calculation was greater. Since each exit point denotes the 

beginning of a floor, each local speed represents the travel between floors. These speeds were 

typically calculated by dividing the stair distance between two adjacent exit points by the travel 

time between these points. 

For example, in Figure 4, occupants exit the camera view 2 steps down from the landing. 

Assuming the lower floor has the same arrangement and assuming 10 step per flight and 2 flights 

per floor, the travel time and distance would be along 40 steps (8 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 2) plus 4 

landings. 

4.1.5 Density

Density was estimated (in persons/m2

) from camera views of the stair landings. With more than 

22000 individual observations of an occupant on a landing, it was impractical to manually count 

other evacuees nearby an evacuee of interest. Thus, a specific algorithm was defined to represent 

a consistent calculation of density. 

As each occupant entered a camera view, there may have been a number of occupants on the 

landing in front of the occupant potentially impacting the speed of stair movement. To estimate 

 

14 As an example, consider an occupant that travels three consecutive 10 m sections in 10 s, 15 s, and 20 s (thus with 

local speeds of 1.00 m/s, 0.67 m/s, and 0.5 m/s, respectively). The arithmetic mean of the three local speeds is 

0.72 m/s. However, the overall mean speed considering the total distance and time travelled is 30 m / 45 s or 

0.67 m/s, which is the harmonic mean of the local speeds. Appendix B includes additional examples and details of 

the calculation of the harmonic mean speed and the associated uncertainties. 
61 

the density on each landing as each occupant entered the landing, the number of other occupants 

(OJ) in front of the selected occupant (OI) was determined according to the following: 

1. For occupant OI, count only those occupants, OJ, such that the times, t, are such that tenter,I

≤ texit,J (here we assume that occupants who leave the landing before an occupant arrives 

are only indirectly impacting the occupant entering the landing by slowing the other 

occupants still on the landing), and 

2. Count only those occupants, OJ, such that texit,J ≤ texit,I (only those who leave the landing 

while occupant I is on the landing). This discounts occupants who remain on a landing 

for extended periods of time standing out of the general flow of occupants down the stair. 

For Buildings 9 and 10, where the majority of the populations were persons with mobility 

impairments, all occupants were included in the density calculations since they routinely 

spend considerable time on each landing. 

Clearly, these are simplifying assumptions since density is a continuous function at all locations 

in a stair, including those not directly monitored by cameras. For example, a backup of evacuees 

on the stairs after a landing will impact the number of people waiting on the landing and thus the 

density on the landing. In addition, density is inherently a local function so there may be higher 

or lower densities at positions not monitored by cameras. It is also worth noting that with this 

definition, it is possible to have a density of zero since the density count does not include the 

occupant being considered since, in effect, the counted density is the density that the occupant 

sees as he/she enters the landing. Overall, it is important to recognize the limitations of 

calculating densities, however the count is conducted. 

The area of landings used by occupants is also part of the density calculation. Consistent with 

the calculation of travel distance on a landing, the effective landing area is calculated using 

distances from eq. (4) with the inside and outside of the stair forming an inner arc and outer arc 

of the landing area. 

   2

2

A w L oi



     (5) 

Where w is the stair width, δo is the boundary layer applied to the outer lane of the stair and δi is 

the boundary layer applied to the inner lane of the stair. Reference [68] includes additional 

details of this calculation. 

4.2 Summary of Data Collected

A visual distribution of the 30 stairwells can be seen in Figure 5. The number of evacuees in 

each stair ranged from 12 to 676, with a total of 5249 occupants observed. Buildings 9 and 10 

housed elderly as well as disabled occupants, whereas the remaining twelve buildings contained 

a large majority of those without any mobility impairments. Data from stairwell 2N and 10-3 

were excluded from the results and analysis section because they both have a sample size of no 

more than five evacuees. In addition, the evacuees travelled only a single floor in these 

stairwells, further limiting the usefulness of the data. Stairwell 12B, which had a sample of 

twelve participants, is kept because evacuees travelled from multiple floors in the building. 
62 

Table 5 presents the descriptive statistics of pre-observation delay, overall speed, and peak 

density for all 30 stairwells sampled15. Occupants moved into the stairwell after a mean delay of 

230 s ± 53 s. Pre-observation delay ranges widely from 41 s to 1708 s. Occupants had a mean 

total evacuation time of 414 s ± 55 s, ranging from 99 s to 1787 s. Participants travelled at 

overall speeds ranging from 0.07 m/s to 1.7 m/s, with a mean speed of 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s. The 

mean peak density within the stairwells ranged from 0.00 persons/m2

 to 3.23 persons/m2, with a 

mean of 1.87 persons/m2

 ± 0.16 persons/m2. 

Stair

1A

1B

2S

3E

3W4A

4B

5A

5B

65

65a

66

66a

7-1

7-3

7-7

7-12

8N

8S

9A

9B

10-2

11-2

11-3

12A

12B

13-1

13-2

14-1

14-2

Sample Size

0

200

400

600

800

Figure 5. Sample size in each stairwell included in the analysis. 

Table 6 displays the results with respect to stairwells that contain occupants with mobilityimpairments (Buildings 9 and 10, a total of three stairs) and those without (the remaining 27 

stairs). Those with mobility impairments had a mean pre-observation delay of 160 s ± 11 s, 

ranging from 41 s to 255 s. Facilities that housed the mobility impaired have considerably larger 

pre-observation delay and total evacuation time means, as well as variances. Occupants initiated 

evacuation after a mean of 850 s ± 430 s. The range encompassed a wider amount of times, from 

398 s to 1708 s. 

 

15 It is standard to describe any distribution with at least two statistics, the distribution mean and the distribution 

standard deviation, which can be estimated from sample data. In Table 5 and in the text, we describe the sample 

distributions with the compact notation of the sample mean plus or minus one sample standard deviation. For 

example, the distribution of mean speeds is 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s. This describes the distribution used to generate a 

randomly selected evacuee's mean speed. Using the central limit theory, we can calculate a measurement uncertainty 

for the estimate of the distribution mean. For the mean speed, this uncertainty is ±0.003 m/s, which is less than the 

error due to rounding and largely a factor of the large sample size. Unfortunately there is not a standard estimate of 

the uncertainty of estimates of the standard deviation of the distribution. Appendix B details the calculation of mean 

movement speed and its associated uncertainty. 
63 

Table 5. Overall Results for Occupant Evacuation in 30 Stairs 

Overall

Variable Sample Sizea Mean Median Range

Pre‐observation delay time (s) 5249 230 ± 53 170 41‐1708

Overall Speed (m/s) 5244 0.44 ± 0.19 0.47 0.07‐1.7

Peak Density (persons/m2) 21303 1.87 ± 0.16 2.04 0.00‐3.2316

a – Pre‐observation delay includes all occupants who entered the stairs. Overall speed includes occupants who

were seen on more than one camera in a stair. Peak density includes all occupants who entered and left one or

more landings in a stair.

Those without mobility impairments maintained a mean overall speed at 0.44 m/s ± 0.18 m/s, 

which ranged from 0.08 m/s to 1.7 m/s. The mean pace in mobility impaired stairwells decreases 

to 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. The range incorporates slower speeds from 0.07 m/s to 0.94 m/s. Mean 

peak density within the able-bodied stairwells varied from 0.00 persons/m2 to 3.23 persons/m2, 

with a mean of 2.05 persons/m2

 ± 0.13 persons/m2. Stairwells with mobility-impaired evacuees 

have a lower mean peak density, 0.25 persons/m2 ± 0.12 persons/m2, with the range curtailed at 

higher values, 0.00 persons/m2

 to 0.39 persons/m2. 

Table 6. Results for occupant evacuation in 30 stairs divided between 

able-bodied and mobility-impaired evacuees 

Stairwells with Primarily Able‐Bodied Evacuees (All Buildings Except 9 and 10)

Variable Sample Sizea Mean Median Range

Pre‐observation delay time (s) 5074 160 ± 11 160 41‐255

Overall Speed (m/s) 5074 0.45 ± 0.18 0.54 0.08‐1.7

Peak Density (persons/m2) 20767 2.05 ± 0.13 2.18 0.00‐3.23

Stairwells with Primarily Mobility‐Impaired Evacuees (Buildings 9 and 10)

Variable Sample Sizea Mean Median Range

Pre‐observation delay time (s) 170 850 ± 430 440 398‐1708

Overall Speed (m/s) 170 0.28 ±  0.17 0.27 0.07‐0.94

Peak Density (persons/m2) 536 0.25 ±  0.12 0.35 0.00‐0.39

a – Pre‐observation delay includes all occupants who entered the stairs. Overall speed includes occupants who

were seen on more than one camera in a stair. Peak density includes all occupants who entered and left one or

more landings in a stair.  

4.3 Pre‐Observation Delay Time

As mentioned earlier, pre-evacuation delay is the time it takes an occupant to initiate evacuation. 

In these observations, an occupant’s delay is operationalized as the length of time from the 

beginning of the drill until he or she is seen entering the stairwell for evacuation. For this report, 

this is termed pre-observation delay time. It is important to note that this definition may be 

 

16 Note from Section 4.1.5, that a density of zero simply implies that no one was on the landing when an occupant 

reached the landing on their descent down the stairs. 
64 

different from the more specific pre-evacuation time which may not include travel time from an 

occupant’s original location in the building to the stairwell to begin evacuation. 

Figure 6, below, shows the median, interquartile range, 10th and 90th percentile of data, and each 

outlier for pre-observation delay for the 30 stairwells in this project. The median, represented by 

the black line, is encased around the middle 50 % of the data with the whiskers signifying the 

10th and 90th percentile. The red circles denote outliers in the stairwell with the transparency set 

to 75 %, in order to see where they tend to accumulate. 

Across 30 stairwells, the mean pre-observation delay of occupants is 230 s ± 53 s. Participants in 

able-bodied buildings have a mean time of 160 s ± 11 s before evacuating into the stairwell. The 

lowest delays occur in building 12, with stairwell 12A occupants initiating evacuation after 35 s 

and 12B after 34 s. The quick pace could be attributed to low overall building population and 

building height as well as pre-announced evacuations. Stairwells with mobility-impaired 

occupants began to evacuate after a longer period of time, 850 s ± 430 s. These facilities most 

likely have higher delays than stairwells with able-bodied occupants, having to wait for fire 

fighter rescue. Building 10 evacuees have the longest mean pre-observation delay at 1660 s. The 

extensive delay within the assisted living facility can be explained by the placement of several 

participants in stair descent devices before evacuation. Firefighters who assisted evacuees often 

had to spend additional time setting up the device and ensuring that the occupant was safe and 

comfortable. 

Figure 6. Pre-stairwell evacuation delay time during fire drill evacuations in 14 buildings. The 

median, represented by the black line, is encased around the middle 50 % of the data with the 

whiskers signifying the 10th and 90th percentile. The red circles denote outliers. 
65 

. 

Probability density plots and cumulative distribution plots, such as those shown in Figure 7 and 

Figure 8, represent a compilation of all individual pre-observation data from the stairwells 

analyzed17. 

Time (s)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Probability

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

(a) Probability

Time (s)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Cumulative Probability

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

(b) Cumulative Probability

Figure 7. Distribution of pre-observation delay in stair evacuations with able-bodied occupants. 

 

17 The probability density plot shows the likelihood of the variable of interest, for any participant, to be a specific 

value. The graph displays the most typical range of values that an occupant would have. The cumulative distribution 

plot displays the summed probability, and shows the value that a variable observed will probably have before 

plateauing off, suggesting outliers beyond that range. 
66 

Figure 7a and Figure 7b are the pre-evacuation delay probability density and cumulative density 

plots, respectively, for the stairwells with primarily able-bodied evacuees (all buildings except 

buildings 9 and 10). The most probable pre-observation delay time in these buildings occurs 

between 100 s and 200 s, with a probability of 0.39. This statistic encompasses the able-bodied 

pre-observation delay per stairwell, 160 s ± 11 s, as well as 15 of the 27 individual stairwell 

medians. The cumulative distribution plot shows that about 97 % of the data will most likely 

occur before 500 s. 

Time (s)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Probability

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

(a) Probability

Time (s)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Cumulative Probability

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

(b) Cumulative Probability

Figure 8. Distribution of residential pre-observation delay time in building fire drill evacuations 

with mobility-impaired occupants. 
67 

Figure 8 represents a compilation of all individual pre-observation delay data from the stairwells 

with mobility-impaired evacuees (the 3 stairwells in buildings 9 and 10). The most probable preobservation time occurs between 0 s and 100 s, with a probability of 0.30. This statistic fails to 

include any individual residential stairwell mean or even the mobility-impaired pre-observation 

delay mean, 850 s ± 430 s. The lack of data for mobility impaired evacuees paired with many 

outliers most likely explain why the measures of central tendency do not overlap with the most 

probabilistic range of data points. The cumulative distribution plot displays that approximately 

52 % of the data will occur earlier than 200 s, before widely scattering throughout the 200 s to 

3200 s range. 

Stair

1A1B2S

3E

3W

4A

4B

5A5B65

65a66

66a7-1

7-3

7-7

7-12

8N8S9A9B

10-211-2

11-3

12A12B

13-1

13-2

14-114-2

Time (s)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

Fraction of Total Evacuation Time

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Pre-stair ObservationTime

Stair Travel Time 

Figure 9. Comparison of mean (median) pre-stairwell evacuation time and stairwell 

travel time for 14 building fire drill evacuations. 

 
68 

Figure 9 shows a comparison of pre-observation delay and travel time for each stairwell, which 

make up the total evacuation time (as a fraction of total evacuation time, top, and expressed as 

time, bottom). Pre-observation delay comprises a median value of 42 % relative an individual’s 

total evacuation time. In the assisted living facility, building 10, pre-observation time exceeds the 

travel time, constituting an average of more than 90 % of the total evacuation time. 

Figure 10 compares pre-observation time with total travel time. The data are compiled in pairs, 

with an occupant’s pre-stairwell evacuation delay (tpre) plotted against his or her total evacuation 

time (ttotal). The regression predicts total evacuation time with a strong positive correlation of r = 

0.75 and explains 56 % of the total evacuation time variance. 

Pre-observation Delay Time (s)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Total Evacuation Time (s)

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

ttotal = 245+ 0.99 tpre 

Figure 10. Comparison of pre-observation delay with total evacuation time for 14 building fire 

drill evacuations.

Another scatterplot (Figure 11) displays the linear regression of travel time versus total 

evacuation time. Again, the data are compiled in pairs, with an occupant’s travel time (ttravel) 

plotted against his or her total evacuation time (ttotal). The purpose of this graph is to emphasize 

the effect pre-observation delay has on total evacuation time relative to travel time. The 

regression predicts total evacuation time with a correlation of r = 0.66, and explains 43 % of the 

variance in total evacuation time. 
69 

Travel Time (s)

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Total Evacuation Time (s)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

ttotal = 189 + 0.99 ttravel

Figure 11. Comparison of travel time with total evacuation time for 14 building fire drill 

evacuations.

Presumably, travel time should constitute the majority of the total evacuation time since the most 

distance is traveled during that period, while very little is travelled during the initial evacuation 

delay period. However, pre-observation delay constitutes a significant fraction of an occupant’s 

total evacuation time and thus influences the total evacuation time. Both community disaster and 

building fire evacuation research provides evidence that people do not immediately react to 

verbal warnings or physical cues [69]. Instead, in order to assess and confirm the initial cues, 

people delay their attempts to take a protective action [69]. The research also shows that 

characteristics of the crisis situation and of the people who experience the event influence how 

long an occupant delays before beginning protective action, such as evacuation. Although preobservation delay consistently seems to occupy much of the total evacuation time, it also has a 

large variability, likely with a more varied set of activities than stair movement. When preobservation delay combines with travel time to form the total evacuation time, variability drops. 

The high internal variability of pre-observation delay as well as its overwhelming composition of 

total evacuation time suggest that further research is needed in this area. Future research should 

focus on the behaviors and environment of the occupants before preparing evacuation movement 

begins. 

4.4 Movement Speeds

In this section, both overall movement speeds of occupants descending the stairwells as well as 

local speeds throughout the stairwells are considered. Overall speeds are determined from the 

total time it takes the occupant to evacuate and the distance traveled during that span. Local 

speeds are the speeds of individuals between cameras views. 
70 

4.4.1 Overall Movement Speeds

The mean overall speed of occupants is 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s, across all 30 stairwells. Figure 12 

displays both the overall mean and mean local movement speeds for each stairwell18. Results 

show lower variance for overall speeds in comparison to pre-observation delay. This category 

also contains the highest movement speed from stairwell 12B at 1.7 m/s, possibly due to the low 

population density19. Mobility-impaired occupants move significantly slower in comparison to 

able-bodied with a mean speed of 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. Similar to pre-observation delay, 

mobility-impaired stairwells stray from the rest of the data with slower overall mean speeds. 

Figure 12. Stair travel speeds in 14 building fire drill evacuations. Shaded area represents the 

overall mean speed and standard deviation for all 30 stairs. 

The mean overall speed across all stairwells, 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s, overlaps with many of the 

movement speeds found in previous studies. The mean speed found in this study is similar to all 

ages of occupants’ speed found in Lord et al.’s study [2], the optimum condition found in Fruin 

[37], from Pauls’ [57], the recommended speed in Melinik and Booth [70], and with the nondisabled evacuees in Boyce Shields, and Silcock [45]. The ranges from these several studies also 

encompass NIST’s overall mean speed: Pauls and Jones [28], Pauls [57], the WTC Towers in 

Galea [26], Wayguidance in Wright, Cook, and Webber [46], and all of Lee and Lam’s [39]. 

 

18 Overall speed is taken from where an evacuee first entered the stairwell until they left the stair at the exit. Local 

speed is taken between successive camera locations within a stair so there are typically multiple local speeds for 

each evacuee. 

19 Although this high value is well above typical movement speeds in stairwells and is certainly an outlier in the 

data, the high uncertainty in Stair 12B means that it is still within 2 standard deviations and was kept in the data set. 

Without this value, the highest local speed is about 1 m/s. 
71 

The mean overall speed in mobility-impaired buildings, 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s, coincides with the 

disabled occupants’ speeds from various, from Lord et al. [2], Boyce Shields and Silcock’s [45] 

study on locomotion disability as well as Proulx’s [13, 14] studies on occupants with mobility 

impairments. Additionally, these speeds from mobility impaired research coincide with all of the 

assisted living facilities’ (buildings 9 and 10) speeds in the individual stairwells (see section 5.2). 

The consistency found between these studies enhances the credibility of the current results. 

 

The current study includes sufficient data to understand the distribution of movement speeds 

beyond mean speeds available in the literature and allows comparison with previous results. The 

probability and cumulative probability in Figure 13 represent a compilation of each evacuee’s 

overall speed across all the buildings without mobility impairments. There was a 26 % 

probability that an occupant evacuated with an overall speed between 0.40 m/s and 0.50 m/s, 

which encompasses 9 of the 27 stairwell medians. Results tend to accumulate around the highest 

probability segment, from 0.30 m/s to 0.60 m/s, which encompasses 16 of 27 of the stairwell 

medians as well as the mean able-bodied speed, 0.44 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. This range implies there is 

a 65 % probability that an able-bodied occupant’s speed was between 0.30 m/s to 0.60 m/s. The 

cumulative distribution plot shows that an overall speed of 0.81 m/s or less captures 

approximately 96 % of the occupants travel speed. Stairwell 12B and 14-2 reside within the 

plateau and could be outliers. 

The probability density plot and cumulative distribution plot in Figure 14a and Figure 14b 

represent a compilation of each evacuee’s overall speed across buildings with primarily mobilityimpaired occupants. 30 % of the occupants evacuated with an overall speed between 0.20 m/s 

and 0.30 m/s. This probability segment encompasses the mean mobility-impaired speed, 0.28 m/s 

± 0.17 m/s, as well as 2 of the 3 individual stairwells medians. The cumulative distribution plot 

shows that an overall speed of 0.68 m/s or less captures approximately 96 % of the occupants 

travel speed. 
72 

Overall Speed (m/s)

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 1.80 2.00

Probability

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

(a) Probability

Overall Speed (m/s)

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0

Cumulative Probability

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

(c) Cumulative Probability

Figure 13. Distribution of stair movement speeds in buildings fire drill evacuations with ablebodied occupants. 
73 

Overall Speed (m/s)

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Probability

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

(a) Probability

Overall Speeds (m/s)

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Cumulative Probability

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

(b) Cumulative Probability

Figure 14. Distribution of stair movement speeds in building fire drill evacuations with mobilityimpaired occupants. 

4.4.2 Local Movement Speeds

Local speeds were analyzed at each camera location. Due to limited resources, camera placement 

varied and only selected floors could be observed, which limited the analysis of local speeds. 

Possible effects of speed changes from descending the stairwell, such as increasing density and 
74 

fatigue, could be discerned by examining these speeds. However, all floor distributions are 

skewed, and rarely show a predictable pattern. The mean local speeds vary widely within and 

among stairwells from 0.10 m/s ± 0.008 m/s to 1.7 m/s ± 0.13 m/s. Figure 12 summarizes the 

local speeds compared the overall means presented earlier. Additional details of local speeds are 

presented in depth in Appendix C to illustrate the high variability within and between floors. 
75 

5 Discussion and Analysis 

Occupant movement on stairs has typically been described by measurable geometric parameters 

describing the design of the stairs. For example, the SFPE Handbook [59] includes a correlation 

in terms of a power law fit to the total population and effective stair width: 

0.27

0.206 total avg

eff eff

P F

w w

        

 (6) 

where Favg is the mean flow of occupants down the stairs, Ptotal is the population using the stairs, 

and weff is the effective width of the stairs. Similarly, flow is correlated to the density of 

occupants in the stairs [59]: 

2 1.26 0.33 Favg   D D (7) 

where D is the density of occupants on the stairs in persons/m2. 

This section provides analyses of the results presented in the previous chapter in terms of these 

and additional stair design parameters to understand their relative importance to occupant speed 

(sections 5.1 and 5.2), flow (section 5.3), and occupant interaction/crowding (sections 5.4 and 

5.5) during stair evacuation. Finally, an example of the use of the data for egress modeling is 

presented (section 5.6). 

5.1 Comparison of Speed and Density Results with Literature Values

Table 7 summarizes the overall pre-observation times and stair movement speeds from this 

study. Overall speeds varied from 0.07 m/s to 1.7 m/s with a mean of 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s. The 

range encompassing observations in this study overlaps with the movement speeds found in 

previous studies. The overall speed for all 14 buildings is similar to the able-bodied occupant 

speed found in previous studies (see, for example, reference [3]). 

Table 7. Summary of travel times, overall speeds, and peak density during stair evacuations in 14 

buildings. 

Variable Sample Sizea        Mean ± Std. Error Median

Pre‐observation delay time (s) 5249 230 ± 53 170

Overall Speed (m/s) 5244 0.44 ± 0.19 0.47

Peak Density (persons/m2) 21303 1.87  ± 0.16 2.04

a – Pre-observation delay includes all occupants who entered the stairs. Overall speed includes 

occupants who were seen on more than one camera in a stair. Peak density includes all occupants who 

entered and left one or more landings in a stair. 
76 

Overall speeds in each stair fell within one standard deviation of the global mean for the current 

study, except for stair 10-2, an assisted living facility where most occupants were evacuated with 

the use of stair travel devices. 

With the considerable variation in all the available data (as indicated by the standard deviation 

shown for some of the studies), the newer data are typically within the range of data in the 

literature and quite similar to the “optimum” or “moderate” movement speed of Fruin [37]. 

Mean movement speeds in the literature for very dense evacuations (for example, Fruin’s crush 

load [37] and the 9/11 World Trade Center evacuation [9]) are significantly lower than both the 

current study and mean values from the literature. This may be indicative of the higher occupant 

densities in the slower stairs. 

The results from this study are consistent with previous studies for evacuees specifically 

identified as needing assistance. The mean speed in the current study, 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s was 

similar to movement speeds of occupants using canes as with the Boyce, Shields, and Silcock 

[45] study (0.32 m/s ± 0.12 m/s). For occupants needing assistance, the ranges are also similar 

with 0.11 m/s to 0.23 m/s for the UK study and 0.11 m/s to 0.33 m/s in the current study. These 

results contrast to the somewhat faster speeds found in the earlier studies of Fruin [37], Fujiyama 

and Tyler [47], and Proulx et al. [13, 14]. 

It is important to recognize that all of these earlier data sets were collected under differing 

conditions, with a range of building heights (ranging from a few stories to about 30 stories in 

height), occupant capabilities (two studies looked specifically at occupants with locomotion 

disabilities), and evacuation conditions (many were fire drills, but actual events are also 

included). Also noteworthy is that all of these data sets were collected and analyzed with 

differing definitions of travel distance, movement speed, and occupant density [68]. 

While the current study does not support recent concerns over slowing evacuation speeds 

resulting from increased obesity rates and lower fitness levels [71], additional study is needed to 

better understand the impact of egress from taller buildings, during emergency conditions 

compared to fire drill evacuations, and accounting for potential differences due to differing 

techniques used to calculate speed and densities. 

5.2 Stairwell Use by People with Disabilities

Although RSET calculations in egress models have been revised to incorporate various behaviors 

of able-bodied occupants, negligible amounts of egress movement data have been collected for 

the disabled [72-74]. Two buildings (Buildings 9 and 10) in the current study were occupied 

exclusively by older adults. Evacuees, whose movements and behavior were analyzed while 

descending the stairwells, included those visually identified as older as well as individuals 

needing assistance from canes, walkers, stair travel devices, and/or other people (often staff or 

firefighters). Due to the lack of data on disabled occupants, this section will explicitly present the 

overall mean speeds on stairs and local speeds of the residents with various mobility 
77 

impairments. Additionally, these data will be compared with experimental and evacuation drill 

results in the literature. 

5.2.1 Overall Speeds 

Occupants evacuated Buildings 9 and 10 at a mean speed of 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s with a range 

from 0.07 m/s to 0.94 m/s. All speeds included in Table 8 represent those along the incline of the 

stair. Table 8 also includes the interquartile range to show the difference between the smallest 

and largest values in the middle 50 % of the data. The interquartile range provides a simple guide 

to highlight any significant outliers in the “Range” column. 

Here, an occupant assisting and the occupant being assisted are defined as one system, similar to 

how firefighters helping a disabled occupant in a stair travel device are treated as one unit. Only 

one occupant helped another evacuee in either of the two drills (with a mean speed of 0.19 m/s). 

The people assisted by staff members or another occupant evacuated at 0.24 m/s ± 0.13 m/s. 

Those assisted by firefighters had a mean speed of 0.14 m/s ± 0.05 m/s. Individuals in stair travel 

devices travelled at a mean speed of 0.20 m/s ± 0.04 m/s. The older population without any 

disabilities moved faster than the other groups at 0.35 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. Individuals were 

confirmed as older by additional visual cues such as hair color or gait. 

Although the disabled groups shared similar mean speeds, occupants being assisted by 

firefighters were significantly slower in both buildings (0.14 m/s ± 0.05 m/s). Due to the smaller 

sample size compared to the total population (8 individuals assisted by firefighters), an 

evaluation of each evacuee can help to understand why this category had the slowest mean speed 

of all the data collected. In the 6-story building, delays were associated with firefighters who had 

to take time assisting the occupants as well as travel up the stairwells with stair travel devices. It 

should be noted, however, that the limited camera views (only on the landings and only every 

other floor in the 13-story building) means there could be additional undocumented situations 

that may have affected the slow speeds. 

 
78 

Table 8. Mean speeds on stairs for all evacuees and within various disability groups. 

(Uncertainties are one standard deviation from the mean.) 

Overall            

   Sample size Mean Range

Population 170 0.28 ± 0.17 0.07  ‐  0.94

   

Cane 18 0.23 ± 0.07 0.12  ‐  0.34

Assisting/Assisted occupant 14 0.24 ± 0.13 0.08  ‐  0.54

Assisted by fire fighter 8 0.14 ± 0.05 0.07  ‐  0.22

Stair travel device 34 0.20 ± 0.04 0.11  ‐  0.29

   

Older adults, no assistancea 90 0.35 ± 0.17 0.14  ‐  0.94

             

Building 9            

   Sample size Mean Range

Population 125 0.30 ± 0.18 0.12  ‐  0.94

   

Cane 14 0.23 ± 0.08 0.12  ‐  0.34

Assisting/Assisted occupant 7 0.27 ± 0.11 0.17  ‐  0.43

Assisted by fire fighter 3 0.17 ± 0.05 0.14  ‐  0.22

Stair travel device 14 0.21 ± 0.04 0.15  ‐  0.28

   

Older adults, no assistancea 81 0.36 ± 0.17 0.15  ‐  0.94

             

Building 10            

   Sample size Mean Range

Population 45 0.20 ± 0.10 0.07  ‐  0.54

   

Cane 4 0.22 ± 0.08 0.15  ‐  0.31

Assisting/Assisted occupant 7 0.17 ± 0.17 0.08  ‐  0.54

Assisted by fire fighter 5 0.11 ± 0.04 0.07  ‐  0.15

Stair travel device 20 0.20 ± 0.04 0.11  ‐  0.29

   

Older adults, no assistancea 9 0.23 ± 0.14 0.14  ‐  0.46

a – Since both buildings were specifically identified as housing for older adults, the 

current study identified those not needing assistance by a process of elimination 

(i.e., no assistance from canes, stair travel devices, or other people). 

5.2.2 Stair Travel Device Use 

During the drills, video cameras captured the evacuation of 34 residents in stair travel devices. 

Overall speeds using stair travel devices were similar in both buildings: 0.21 m/s ± 0.04 m/s in 
79 

Building 9 and 0.20 m/s ± 0.04 m/s in Building 10. From video footage analysis, NIST 

recognized five prominent methods firefighters used to assist residents in stair travel devices 

down the stairwells. These methods are listed here as: 

 One firefighter was stationed in front of the resident in the chair guiding the chair down 

using the front handles, and one firefighter was behind the chair pushing it down the 

stairs. (1 FF front, 1 FF back) 

 Two firefighters were stationed in front of the resident in the chair guiding the chair 

down using the front handles (or sometimes one was stationed on the side of the chair), 

and one firefighter was behind the chair pushing it down the stairs. (2 FF front, 1 FF 

back) 

 One firefighter was stationed in front of the resident in the chair guiding the chair down 

using the front handles, and one firefighter was behind the chair pushing it down the 

stairs. Also, one firefighter was following behind the group carrying or dragging a 

wheelchair or walker equipment that likely belonged to the resident. (1 FF front, 1 FF 

back, 1 FF walker) 

 One firefighter was stationed in front of the resident in the chair guiding the chair down 

using the front handles, and one firefighter was behind the chair pushing it down the 

stairs. Also, one firefighter was following behind the group without any equipment in 

hand (1 FF front, 1 FF back, 1 FF watching). 

 One firefighter was stationed in front of the resident in the chair guiding the chair down 

using the front handles, and one firefighter was behind the chair pushing it down the 

stairs. Also, there is a combination of a firefighter watching the group without any 

equipment as well as another carrying or dragging a wheelchair or walker (1 FF front, 1 

FF back, FF combination). 

Table 9. Overall speeds on stairways for evacuees on stair travel devices 

from Buildings 9 and 10. 

Overall Building 9 Building 10

  

Sample

Size Mean

Sample

Size Mean

Sample

Size Mean

Population 34      14      20     

                 

1 FF front, 1 FF back 18 0.19 ± 0.04 11 0.20 ± 0.03 7 0.18 ± 0.04

2 FF front, 1 FF back 2 0.21 ± 0.01  ‐  ‐   2 0.21 ± 0.01

1 FF front, 1 FF back, 1 FF

walker 7 0.23 ± 0.03 2 0.25 ± 0.03 5 0.23 ± 0.02

1 FF Front, 1 FF back, 1 FF

watching 2 0.19 ± 0.04  ‐  ‐   2 0.19 ± 0.04

1 FF front, 1ff back, FF

combination 5 0.26 ± 0.05 1 0.24   ‐  4 0.25 ± 0.06

a – Overall sample size reflects additional stair travel devices where more than one individual method 

was observed and thus may not equal the sum of individual method counts 
80 

Table 9 shows the distribution of the method by which stair travel devices were used in each 

building, with accompanying movement speeds on stairs. There was no single technique used by 

participating fire department companies to operate the stair travel devices; however, the primary 

method positioned one firefighter in front to guide the chair and another in the back to push the 

chair. This particular method may provide the most efficient evacuation for a building because it 

reduces the number of firefighters assisting a resident while maintaining a speed similar to the 

other movement data collected. Although the quickest method (0.26 m/s ± 0.05 m/s) could be 

considered a best-case, the number of people involved in that system (at least 3) could cause 

unnecessary congestion and fewer firefighters to help other occupants reach safety. The speed 

was also largely driven by a small number of faster evacuees. 

5.2.3 Comparison to Previous Studies 

Previous research findings (shown in Table 2) can also be compared to results from the current 

study. The majority of literature examined presents observations of unassisted movement speeds 

of older adults on stairways. The current study found that older occupants in the two buildings 

traveled on 170 mm (6.5 in) rise and 300 mm (12 in) stairs at a rate of 0.35 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. 

These findings contrast to the slightly faster speeds found in the earlier studies of Fruin [37], 

Fujiyama and Tyler [47], and Proulx et al. [3]. Fruin [37] found mean speeds of 0.67 m/s for men 

and 0.63 m/s for women (both over 50 years old) on similar stair configurations. Fujiyama and 

Tyler [47] observed speeds of 0.88 m/s ± 0.17 m/s for occupants (60 to 81) years old on similarly 

configured stairs as well. Proulx et al. [3] observed speeds of 0.57 m/s and 0.58 m/s for 

occupants over 65 years old from two residential buildings. 

There are three main reasons why the current study observed slower movement speeds on stairs. 

First, as noted above, one of the buildings in the current study was an assisted-living facility. The 

second building was simply designated as housing for older adults. This study was thus able to 

observe occupants evacuating with a wide range of disabilities, which may otherwise be difficult 

to capture during evacuation drills from other types of buildings, especially in buildings where 

disabled occupants may not participate. Secondly, it may be possible that certain older occupants 

had visually undetectable mobility impairments that slowed them down. Whereas previous 

experiments could distinguish between mobility-impaired and older participants, the current 

study identified older individuals by a process of elimination (i.e., no assistance from canes, stair 

travel devices, or other people). Although the data acquired in this study may not facilitate direct 

comparison, the authors posit that a situation when all occupants, regardless of disability, must 

evacuate represents conditions that would likely be found in an actual emergency building 

evacuation. Finally, the mean values in the current study are calculated differently than those in 

previous studies, using a harmonic mean (which accounts for occupants in different stairs and 

starting at different floors traveling different distances) rather than a simple arithmetic mean. 

The harmonic mean is always smaller than the arithmetic mean. 

The results from this study are reasonably consistent with previous studies for evacuees needing 

assistance. The current study (0.24 m/s ± 0.13 m/s, Table 8), found similar movement speeds of 

occupants using canes as with the Boyce, Shields, and Silcock [45] study (0.32 m/s ± 0.12 m/s). 
81 

Adams and Galea’s [75] study presented movement speeds of individuals in stair travel devices. 

The mean speeds observed across all four types of evacuation devices utilized (Evac+Chair, 

Carry Chair, stretcher, and Drag Mattress) were faster than those in the current study. The 

researchers found a mean speed of 0.81 m/s for the Evac+Chair and 0.57 m/s for the carry chair, 

whereas, this study found occupants evacuating around a fourth of the speed of the Evac+Chair 

and less than half the speed of the carry chair (0.20 m/s ± 0.04 m/s, Table 8). Such a difference 

in speeds can be attributed to the variation in data collection methods. Although very little 

congestion was observed in the current study, occupants were evacuated simultaneously during 

the evacuation drill; whereas in Adams and Galea’s study, occupants were evacuated one team at 

a time. Another possible reason for differences is the preparation that staff and firefighters had 

with these chairs. Researchers in the Adams and Galea [75] study observed trained hospital staff 

familiar with the operation of these devices. However, the current study involved the local fire 

department that participated in the evacuation drill as part of a training exercise. The firefighters 

were most likely not as well-versed in the use or manipulation of these chairs as the hospital staff 

in Adams and Galea’s [75] study. Therefore, this study’s stair travel device movement data 

should be used for scenarios when individuals assisting occupants are not well-trained or 

experienced in the use of the devices. 

5.3 Flow on Stairs

As mentioned earlier, one purpose of this report is to provide a better technical foundation for 

future code requirements for egress stair design. In order to do this, it is essential to understand 

the factors that most influence various aspects of evacuation time. A building evacuation is 

dependent on a number of different events and decisions for each person in the building. As 

shown in Figure 1, there are distinct stages in an evacuation such as the time from the event to 

the alarm, the time from the alarm to the decision to evacuate, and the travel time. The travel 

time can be further broken into travel time on the starting floor and travel time in the stairs. In 

each part of the evacuation process, there are impacts from a number of sources including human 

behavior, communication, building procedures and physical constraints. 

In this section, the factors are identified that influence occupant flow on stairs. The factors that 

have been identified in the literature as influential to occupant flow are building population [59], 

stair width [50], stair geometry [50], and overall distance traveled [59]. The analysis in this 

section explores each of these factors for their contribution to occupant flow. 

5.3.1 Early and Late Evacuees

The analysis in this report focuses primarily on the middle 90 % of the evacuees in each stair. 

Figure 15 shows a sample plot of the number of people that have exited the stair by a given time 

for a representative stair included in the study. The plot has been divided into three sections. The 

middle section, which is made up of the 5th percentile to the 95th percentile of the population, can 

be characterized by a straight line. The slope of this line is equal to the mean flow for the middle 

90 % of the evacuating population. 
82 

Figure 15. Sample fraction of stair population evacuated as a function of time since building 

alarm 

For the early (the first 5 %) and late (the last 5 %) evacuees, the exit times and thus the flow 

cannot be reasonably described with a straight line. The flow rate in these sections changes as the 

egress transitions from no flow to the quasi-steady flow of the middle 90 % in the first section 

and from quasi-steady flow back to a zero flow condition. 

For the early evacuees, evacuation time is largely driven by their time prior to entering the stairs 

for evacuation. Since these early evacuees also naturally begin on the lower floors of a building, 

pre-evacuation time is a larger fraction of their total evacuation time. 

Most of the late evacuees were those with building duties during the evacuation such as floor 

wardens (with responsibility to ensure their assigned areas were evacuated prior to beginning 

their own evacuation) or first responders (with similar responsibilities or who were observing the 

drill for post-drill assessments). A far smaller fraction either began their evacuations after an 

extended pre-evacuation delay or in a few cases moved very slowly down the stairs. Both of 

these are largely addressable by pre-drill training that stresses the need to begin evacuation 

quickly or ensuring all evacuees understand available options for assisted evacuation. Thus, the 

overall evacuation time of very late evacuees are largely unaffected by details of stair design and 

are not considered further in this section. Other aspects of efficient building evacuation 

including pre-planning, training, or other evacuation strategies which are outside the scope of 

this report may particularly address the late evacuees. 

Fraction of Total Egress Population

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

Egress Time (s)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600 First 5 % Middle 90 % Last 5 %

Sample data taken from Stair 8N
83 

Still, the time for the early and late evacuees can impact the overall evacuation time for a stair. 

Table 10 shows the fraction of the total evacuation time it takes for the early and late evacuees. 

On average, the early and late evacuees each account for about 20 % of the total stair evacuation 

time with a wide range for both. Thus, estimation of evacuation time must include an initial preevacuation time (time taken by the early evacuees to reach the stairwells), the time taken by the 

bulk of the evacuees (time taken by the middle 90 % in the analysis in this report), and the added 

evacuation time for late evacuees. For the latter, a design margin is typically included in the 

estimates. 

Table 10. Impact of early and late evacuees on overall evacuation time 

for the thirty stairs included in the study. 

   Fraction of Total Evacuation Time

   Mean Range

First 5 % 0.20 ± 0.12 0.03  ‐  0.46

Last 5 % 0.22 ± 0.18 0.01  ‐  0.61

5.3.2 Analysis of Flow

Describing occupant egress as a flow is a well-established means of analyzing an evacuation 

process [37, 41, 58, 76]. Flow is simply the ratio of the number of evacuees passing through a 

known point in the evacuation path (most typically, the exit door at the bottom of the stair) to the 

time difference between the first and last evacuees. To estimate the mean flow, we exclude the 

very early evacuees (the first 5 % of the population) and very late evacuees (the last 5 % of the 

population) and calculate the mean flow for the middle 90 % as 

5 95

95 5

ave

P F

t t

   (8) 

where Fave is the mean flow, P5-95 is the total number of evacuees in the middle 90 % of the 

population, and finally t95 and t5 are the exit times of the person at the 95th percentile and the 

person at the 5th percentile, respectively. 

In order to understand the relative importance of different factors on stair flow, correlations and 

functional relationships using both linear least squares (LLS) and the Bayesian parameter 

estimation approach that is described in Appendix D were considered to better understand the 

parameters that are important for determination of the flow. In this section, seven different 

functional relationships between various measured quantities (shown in the models below) and 

the mean flow of the middle 90 % of non-residential stairs, Fave , were considered. The models 

that were evaluated are as follows: 

Model 1. Flow as a function of total population,Ptotal , power law model, 

1 F P ave total 0

  (9) 
84 

Model 2. Flow as a function of exit distance,Dexit , power law model, 

2 F D ave exit 0

  (10) 

Model 3. Flow as a function of effective width,weff , power law model, 

3 Fave eff 0w

  (11) 

Model 4. Flow as a function of occupants and exit distance, 

1 2 F PD ave total exit 0

   (12) 

Model 5. Flow as a function of occupants and effective width, 

1 3 Fave total eff 0P w   (13) 

Model 6. Flow as a function of exit distance and effective width, 

2 3 Fave exit eff 0D w   (14) 

Model 7. Flow as a function of occupants, exit distance, and effective width, 

1 2 3 Fave total exit eff 0PDw     (15) 

Where θ0, θ1, θ2, and θ3 are constants that will be determined by linear least squares or Bayesian 

parameter estimation. Fave is the mean flow of the middle 90 % of evacuees using the stair, Ptotal

is the total population of evacuees using the stair, Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by an 

evacuee in the stair, weff is the effective width of the stair. See Appendix D for additional details. 

The analyses for all the models followed the same procedure as detailed in Appendix D for 

model 1. A summary of all the parameter values from both methods for the seven models are 

found in Table 11. In addition to the overall fit of the equation (where a higher R2 value or lower 

deviance information criterion (DIC) value indicates a better fit20), the magnitude of each of the 

four constants, θ0, θ1, θ2, and θ3, are included along with the 95 % confidence interval for the 

constants (for the Bayesian analysis) and the p-value (for the LLS analysis). The 95 % 

confidence interval (95 % CI) and the p-value are indicators of the precision and statistical 

significance of the constant, respectively. 

From Table 11, the trends for the dependency of stair population, exit distance, and effective 

stair width on flow are consistent for all the models and for both the Bayesian and LLS analyses. 

Stair population and effective width consistently show a positive correlation (indicated by the 

sign of the respective constant) with flow (higher population or effective width lead to a higher 

flow). The exponents for exit distance and number of occupants are nearly identical when each 

parameter is correlated with mean flow individually or together. Furthermore the R2

 for the two 

together is actually slightly larger than the sum of the two R2 individually. From the linear least 

squares analysis, models that include stair population or exit distance typically show correlations 

with p-values at the 0.01 or 0.005 level indicating statistically meaningful dependence of flow on 

these parameters and with fairly consistent magnitudes for these variables. 

 

 

20 R2

, the coefficient of determination is a measure of how well the measured experimental data fit the selected 

regression model. Values for R2

 range from 0 to 1, with a higher value indicating a better fit. Like R2, the Bayesian 

DIC is a measure of the quality of the chosen model, with lower values of the DIC indicating a better fit. 
85

Table 11. Values for 7 models determined using Bayesian inference and linear least squares. 

Bayesian Inference Analysis

Model R2 DIC

Population, 1  Exit Distance, 2  Effective Width, 3  Constant, 0 

1  95 % CI 2  95 % CI 3  95 % CI 0  95 % CI

1 1 0 ave total F P  0.64  ‐30 0.34 [0.09, 0.55] 0.08 [0.02, 0.29]2 2 0 ave exit F D  0.62  ‐21     ‐0.32 [‐0.50, ‐0.16] 2.2 [1.06, 5.23]3 3 0 ave eff F w   0.65  ‐20 1.46 [0.69, 2.27] 0.54 [0.46, 0.62]4 1 2 0 ave total exit F P D   0.89  ‐48 0.38 [0.24, 0.52]  ‐0.33 [‐0.47, ‐0.23] 0.32 [0.14, 0.77]5 1 3 0 ave total eff F Pw   0.77  ‐31 0.22 [0.05, 0.41] 1.23 0.49, 2.03] 0.16 [0.06, 0.41]6 3 2 0 ave exit eff F Dw   0.69  ‐23     ‐0.21 [‐0.40, ‐0.03] 0.75 [‐0.23, 1.67] 1.48 [0.64, 3.32]7 3 1 2 0 ave total exit eff F PDw    0.91  ‐48 0.36 [0.23, 0.49]  ‐0.28 [‐0.41, ‐0.17] 0.49 [‐0.09, 1.03] 0.30 [0.14, 0.59]

Linear Least Squares Analysis

Model R2

Population, 1  Exit Distance, 2  Effective Width, 3  Constant, 0 

1  p‐value 2  p‐value 3  p‐value 0  p‐value

1 1 0 ave total F P  0.64 0.46 0.005 0.037 0.0052 2 0 ave exit F D  0.61     ‐0.4 0.005 3.2 0.0203 3 0 ave eff F w   0.62 2.0 0.020 0.54 0.0054 1 2 0 ave total exit F P D   0.88 0.46 0.005  ‐0.40 0.005 0.29 0.105 3 1 0 ave total eff F P w   0.76 0.35 0.010 1.5 0.005 0.08 0.0056 1 2 0 ave exit eff F Dw   0.67     ‐0.30 0.010 1.1 0.060 2.2 0.1207 3 1 2 0 ave total exit eff F PDw    0.90 0.44 0.005  ‐0.37 0.005 0.34 0.335 0.29 0.015
86 

While exit distance consistently shows a negative correlation (greater distance leads to a slower 

mean flow), the relative importance of effective stair width is not as clear with typically higher 

p-values. Also note that in the correlations that include effective width, the exponent for effective 

width varies widely from correlation to correlation. The range is from 0.35 to 1.96 while both 

exit distance and number of occupants have exponents with similar values. The R2

 does not 

increase nearly as much when adding in effective width. 

One of the reasons that effective width does not explain more variation is that it is highly 

correlated with exit distance and number of occupants. This is not surprising since, as mentioned 

in Section 2.3, code requirements for stair design are based both on the number occupants on 

each floor of the building and to a lesser extent, the number of floors in the building. Together, 

exit distance and number of occupants explain almost 50 % of variation in effective width. For 

this reason it is not possible to say that effective width does not have an impact on the mean 

flow. 

The following simple correlation based on Model 4 with rational roots was found as the best fit 

to the data with an R2

 of 0.88: 

1

3

0.42 total

ave

exit

P F

D

      

 (16) 

where Fave is the mean flow out the exit door in persons/s, Ptotal is the total number of people 

using the stairs, and Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by people using the stairs. This 

correlation was found to work well for the middle 90 % of those exiting the stairs. 

As an example, consider a building where the stair configuration (i.e., the distance traveled to 

leave the floor or exit distance), and the population per floor are exactly the same for all floors. 

Defining the population per floor as Pf and the distance traveled as Df , then the total population 

and exit distance are N*Pf and N*Df , respectively, where N is the number of floors. Substituting 

into Eq (16), the flow at the exit is equal to a constant times the ratio of the Pf and Df . The exit 

time for the middle 90 % is then equal to the total population over the mean flow or 

2 1

3 3

1

3

2.4

0.42

f f

N ff

ave f

f

NP NP

T NP D

F P

D

 

     

 (17) 

where TN is the total time it takes the middle 90 % to exit. So, the total exit time for middle 90 % 

is linear to the number of floors provided all the floors are identical. 
87 

5.4 Point Process Modeling of Egress Timing

In section 5.3, important variables that impact occupant flow in stairs were considered. In this 

section, the same variables are examined to better understand their impact on the timing of 

evacuation for each occupant and the interactions between occupants as they evacuate the 

building. Many models that simulate egress as a flow (i.e., hydraulic models) exist in the 

literature. They range from simple empirical data models to more elaborate fire dynamic 

simulators that use methods of mechanics, fluid dynamics and stochastic differential equations to 

describe the motion in human egress, see, for example, Section 2.4. 

In this report, a new approach is taken. Flow is modeled as a point process21. Specifically, flow 

through the entrance or exit door of a stair is modeled as a point process [77, 78]. This approach 

uses only assumptions that are natural for the data. In general, exit times for individuals in a 

given building evacuation are not independent of each other due to human to human interaction 

within stairs and within exit corridors. Thus, a point process model that captures these 

dependences is required. This new approach, though probabilistic, agrees with results used in 

common practice flow models (for example, see section 5.4.2). 

The dynamics of any flow are driven by the interaction of its fluid particles. A point process 

model provides a different type of data set than that provided by most flow models. Rather than 

an unstructured list of occupant exit points, it provides a curve of time correlated exit points, i.e. 

intensity functions and their compensators (compensators are cumulative intensity functions). 

Both the intensity function and compensator uniquely identify a point process22. To understand 

the underlying structure of these functions, statistical functional data analysis (fda) can be 

applied. 

With fda, classical statistical techniques, where data points are individual real numbers are 

extended to data points that are functions or curves. Many of the same statistical techniques that 

hold for point data sets hold for functional data sets. Usually, these functions are assumed to lie 

in L2[0,T], the space of square integral functions on a finite set [0,T]. Means, variances, 

clustering techniques and regression are performed on sets of functions. Because an intensity 

function, λ and compensator function, Λ, is associated with each stairwell, fda can be readily 

applied to the set of all stairs, ˆ ˆ ( ) { ( , ), 1, , } and ( ) { ( , ), 1, , } i i i i   t ti n t ti n         . For 

example, regression methods of functional data analysis can be used to model stair intensities as 

a function of the parameters that describe stair geometries. In addition, since these functions 

capture the interactions between data points, they can also be used to better understand the 

 

21 In statistics and probability theory, a point process on a real line (such as a time line) is a set of isolated data 

points that can be described by the correlated intervals between the points. They have been extensively studied in 

statistics and probability theory. 

22 In this report, the Hawkes point process model is used which predicts the intensity as a function of the distribution 

of flow over time for each dependent variable of interest. The three parameters in the Hawkes model, μ, α, and β

provide a quantitative measure of the background intensity, the likelihood of formation of clusters of occupants, and 

the size of these clusters during the evacuation, respectively. The compensator is a piecewise integration of the 

intensity function and can be roughly thought of as a cumulative probability function. Appendix E includes details 

of point processes and the Hawkes model. 
88 

interactions between occupants and thus hold promise to improve egress modeling by 

incorporating both the effects of the physical stair geometry and of the interactions between 

evacuees during stair evacuation. 

The Hawkes point process model [79-81] used in this report captures occupant to occupant 

interaction during evacuation that does not appear in previous models. Details of the use of the 

Hawkes point process model in the context of evacuation timing is included in Appendix E. 

Associated with each stair are three flow point processes, pre-observation time, travel time and 

total exit time. All three processes are modeled as Hawkes processes to determine maximum 

likelihood estimates. The intensity function (see Appendix E for details) for the exit times 

1 2 n tt t    modeled as a Hawkes point process is given by 

( )

1

1 1

log ( , , , , ) ( 1) log( ) n i

n n t t

nn i

i i

Lt t t e A        

 

 

      ∣   (18) 

where 

( ) i j

j i

t t

i

t t

A e  



 for i ≥2 and Ai=0. The three parameters, μ, α, and β can be taken as 

indicators of the average baseline intensity of the occupant flow (roughly an indicator of the 

average flow in the stair), the average intensity of interactions between occupants in the flow 

(roughly an indicator of how occupant interactions impact the average flow), and how quickly 

the interactions dissipates (or how quickly the intensity returns to the baseline intensity following 

interactions), respectively. For stair evacuation, these interactions include clustering of occupants 

into groups and its impact on evacuation timing. Thus, while μ is roughly analogous to the flow 

discussed in the previous section, both α and β provide additional information of the nature of the 

flow. Determining the parameters that influence μ, α, and β can provide additional understanding 

of the importance of the various measured variables in the evacuations. 

5.4.1 Important Parameters Influencing Occupant Egress

Maximum likelihood estimates for the three parameters were found using the Nelder-Mead 

nonlinear optimization algorithm. All computations used the global routine "NMaximize" with 

constraints    0, 0, and 0   in Mathematica. When ties arose among the ti, they were 

broken by adding a small amount of noise, ε, where ε is a uniform random variable on 

[ , ], 0.25      . This is within the uncertainty of the measurements. Table 12 and Table 13 

contain the results. In addition to estimates for μ, α, β, and the average intensity, the table also 

shows the branching ratio, α/β. 

 
89 

Table 12. Maximum likelihood estimates for pre-observation times for each stairwell. 

Stair

No.

Number of

Occupants

μ

(background)

α

(magnitude)

β 

(time

decay)

Average

intensity

Branching

ratio

1A 129 0.0289 0.0997 0.1080 0.3423 0.9229

1B 143 0.0848 0.1270 0.1593 0.3816 0.7971

2South 126 0.0240 0.1261 0.1344 0.3410 0.9377

3East 119 0.0471 0.1171 0.1274 0.4646 0.9186

3West 100 0.0660 0.0984 0.1169 0.3839 0.8414

4A 244 0.0134 0.1463 0.1560 0.2024 0.9377

4B 354 0.0121 0.1209 0.1256 0.2973 0.9624

5A 432 0.0190 0.1417 0.1468 0.5039 0.9648

5B 361 0.0093 0.1180 0.1212 0.3151 0.9740

6‐5 98 0.0291 0.0984 0.1102 0.2441 0.8924

6‐5a 148 0.1197 0.0527 0.0744 0.3744 0.7086

6‐6 114 0.0010 0.0857 0.0869 0.0415 0.9858

6‐6a 217 0.0156 0.0933 0.0973 0.2939 0.9593

7‐1 261 0.0180 0.0832 0.0884 0.2901 0.9415

7‐3 293 0.0177 0.0951 0.1009 0.2931 0.9428

7‐7 343 0.0120 0.0670 0.0701 0.2542 0.9567

7‐12 195 0.0337 0.1045 0.1161 0.3226 0.9004

8N 665 0.0252 0.1153 0.1207 0.5464 0.9553

8S 525 0.0092 0.1070 0.1092 0.4093 0.9802

9A 70 0.0076 0.0668 0.0923 0.0265 0.7244

9B 56 0.0022 0.0316 0.0355 0.0176 0.8924

10‐2 42 0.0136 0.3832 4.6493 0.0148 0.0824

11‐2 135 0.0530 0.1545 0.1962 0.2333 0.7877

11‐3 89 0.0037 0.0989 0.1028 0.0642 0.9623

12A 64 0.2238 0.1265 0.1984 0.5865 0.6376

12B 12 0.0777 0.2691 0.5626 0.1384 0.4783

13‐1 32 0.0158 0.0541 0.0742 0.0539 0.7286

13‐2 28 0.0143 0.0364 0.0525 0.0442 0.6943

14‐1 175 0.0372 0.0647 0.0766 0.2228 0.8441

14‐2 130 0.0185 0.1273 0.1453 0.1399 0.8766

 
90 

Table 13. Maximum likelihood estimates for stair travel times for each stairwell. 

Stair

No.

Number of

Occupants

μ

(background)

α

(magnitude)

β (time

decay)

Average

intensity

Branching

ratio

1A 129 0.2841 0.4468 0.5625 1.3368 0.7942

1B 143 0.1439 0.4375 0.5629 0.5992 0.7773

2South 126 0.1129 0.2771 0.3474 0.5395 0.7977

3East 119 0.1666 0.2862 0.3841 0.6085 0.7451

3West 100 0.1155 0.5688 0.7413 0.4645 0.7674

4A 244 0.1832 0.5033 0.7599 0.5381 0.6623

4B 354 0.1913 0.6688 0.9351 0.6516 0.7152

5A 432 0.1679 0.3853 0.4769 0.8500 0.8080

5B 361 0.1456 0.5747 0.7296 0.6784 0.7877

6‐5 98 0.0295 0.3387 0.4583 0.1099 0.7391

6‐5a 148 0.0486 0.4241 0.5328 0.2313 0.7960

6‐6 114 0.0319 0.2489 0.3416 0.1132 0.7287

6‐6a 217 0.0391 0.4043 0.5025 0.1962 0.8046

7‐1 261 0.1613 0.2910 0.4103 0.5490 0.7093

7‐3 293 0.3893 0.4175 0.8256 0.7847 0.5057

7‐7 343 0.2239 0.4045 0.6941 0.5295 0.5828

7‐12 195 0.2550 0.3624 0.6038 0.6325 0.6002

8N 665 0.2604 0.2194 0.3217 0.8147 0.6820

8S 525 0.1154 0.2746 0.3505 0.5289 0.7835

9A 70 0.0320 0.0307 0.0426 0.1087 0.7201

9B 56 0.0057 0.0448 0.0491 0.0543 0.9118

10‐2 42 0.0586 0.0336 0.0595 0.1300 0.5653

11‐2 135 0.0732 0.4002 0.5460 0.2646 0.7329

11‐3 89 0.0921 0.3746 0.8647 0.1603 0.4332

12A 64 0.3150 0.6232 1.0389 0.7512 0.5998

12B 12 0.0503 0.1772 0.2256 0.1444 0.7852

13‐1 32 0.0497 0.1495 0.4944 0.0703 0.3025

13‐2 28 0.0224 0.1447 0.1814 0.0972 0.7976

14‐1 175 0.0623 0.5394 0.8248 0.1733 0.6540

14‐2 130 0.0883 0.3224 0.5319 0.2173 0.6062

Like the previous section, both linear multiple regression and Bayesian inference can be used to 

determine the relative importance of quantities measured during the evacuations as related to the 

average intensity estimated by point process modeling by the same parameter estimation 

methods (see Appendix E for details). To determine the predictive influence of each engineering 

variable on flow, the following linear model is assumed 
91 

m x x x error j j j pj     0 1 1, 2 2, p,    (19) 

where the dependent data variables are (m1,m2, . . .,m31), the independent variables, x1,j, x2,j, . . . , 

xp,j are the engineering variables of interest, e.g., stair width, tread depth, tread height, and other 

variables. Linear least squares and Bayesian inference were used to estimate the parameters θ0, 

θ1, . . . , θp and hypothesis tests are used to determine whether an engineering variable 

contributes significantly in explaining variability in the dependent variable. 

The first results are for the average intensities of pre-observation time, travel time and total exit 

time. Six parameters and the constant were found to be significant for at least one of the three 

average intensities. They are the number of occupants, Ptotal, exit distance, Dexit, if the building is 

residential or non-residential, Btype, the stair riser dimension, sriser, the stair tread dimension, stread, 

a flag indicating if a stair travel device was used at any time during evacuation, Fchair, and finally 

a constant, c. 

Table 14 shows the R2 for each of the fits, the estimate of the coefficient for each variable and 

the p values for the coefficients which tested as significant using LLS. If a building parameter 

does not have a value for a particular average intensity it means that parameter did not test as 

significant. Table 14 also shows the deviance information criterion, DIC, the estimate of the 

coefficients, and the probability that the actual value is a different sign from the median for the 

three models using Bayesian inference to determine the coefficients. 

For all three average intensities Ptotal, Dexit, and Btype are all significant. For the average intensity 

of travel time, two additional building parameters are significant: sriser and stread. 

The signs for the three building parameters that are common, Ptotal, Dexit, and Btype, are the same 

across the different average intensities. The coefficients for the building parameters for preobservation time and exit time had the same order of magnitude, but differed from the order of 

magnitude for the number of occupants and exit distance for the travel time. Finally, there is a 

clear logic to the fact that the step dimensions do not impact the average intensities for preobservation time and exit time but do for travel time. In the pre-observation period, the 

occupants were not interacting with the stairs. While the occupants do interact with the stairs on 

their way to the exit door, the fraction of the total exit time any occupant spends on the stairs 

varied significantly, so the impact of the stairs on the total exit time varied as well. However, for 

the travel time in the stairs, the dimensions of the stairs can have a significant impact on the 

average intensity. 

 
92 

Table 14. Building parameters that correlate with average intensity using LLS and Bayesian 

Inference 

Linear Least Squares

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Time Travel Time Total Exit Time

Coefficient p value Coefficient p value Coefficient p value

R2 0.61    0.81    0.84   

Ptotal 0.040 0.015 0.12 0.005 0.061 0.005

Dexit  ‐0.036 0.015  ‐0.13 0.005  ‐0.037 0.005

Btype  ‐0.23 0.005  ‐0.22 0.055  ‐0.15 0.005

sriser     9.35 0.030    

stread     4.88 0.055 1.30 0.055

Fchair         ‐0.090 0.025

0 0.29 0.020  ‐2.53 0.080  ‐0.22 0.315

         

Bayesian Inference

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Time Travel Time Total Exit Time

Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95 % CI

DIC ‐43.8  ‐24.1  ‐72.6   

Ptotal 0.042 [0.01, 0.07] 0.12 [0.08, 0.17] 0.061 [0.04, 0.08]

Dexit ‐0.036 [‐0.06. ‐0.01]  ‐0.12 [‐0.17, ‐09]  ‐0.036 [‐0.05,‐0.02]

Btype ‐0.22 [‐0.36, ‐0.10]  ‐0.21 [‐0.42, 0.02]  ‐0.14 [‐0.23, ‐0.05]

sriser     9.7 [2.18,

17.69]

   

stread     5.1 [0.43, 9.66] 1.34 [0.00, 2.71]

Fchair        ‐0.11 [‐0.18, ‐0.04]

0 0.28 [0.06, 0.51]  ‐2.7 [‐5.28, 0.10]  ‐0.22 [‐0.66, 0.21]

Ptotal is the total population of evacuees using the stair, Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by an

evacuee in the stair, Btype is the building type (office or residential occupancy), sriser is the tread riser

height, stread is the tread depth, Fchair indicates the presence or absence of a stair travel device in the

stair, and 0 is a constant in the linear model from eq. (19).

Stair Width: In terms of the capacity requirements, both the International Building Code and the 

Life Safety Code directly correlate incremental increases in stair width with increased capacity. 

More specifically, stair capacity factors (i.e., 5 mm (0.2 in) of required stair width per person on 

an occupied floor in the building) are used to calculate a required stair width (with a minimum 

stair width specified as 1118 mm (44 in) wide in both the IBC and the LSC23). The LSC further 

requires an increase in the minimum stair width to 1422 mm (56 in) for buildings serving equal 

to or greater than 2000 people). 

 

23 The minimum requirement exists for stairways serving greater than 50 people, and less than 2000 people in the 

LSC. 
93 

Before prescribing the use of stair capacity factors, the IBC and NFPA codes relied on the 

concept of exit lanes. The exit lane concept argues that benefits in stair efficiency (e.g., flow and 

speed on stairs) are seen only after step-wise increases in lanes of stair width, rather than 

incremental increases in width. Lanes of stair width are distances equivalent to the width of a 

person, shoulder to shoulder, or a mean of 559 mm (22 in) in width. 

Current debates in the code communities have questioned the appropriateness of the prescriptive 

minimum stair widths required by the IBC and NFPA codes – inquiring if 1118 mm (44 in) of 

stair width is enough? Also questioned is the appropriateness of the use of capacity factors 

versus exit lane capacity to calculate required stair widths. Therefore, the evaluation of the 

performance of the critical threshold widths, as well as various other widths, was important for 

assessing the efficacy of common building code requirements for stairway construction. 

Using point process modeling, the influence of effective width on stair efficiency was tested, 

measured here as increased stair flow. Stair flow was measured at the bottom of the stairs, 

located at the exit door from the stair. Since there was no queuing witnessed at the stair doors in 

each stairway, effective stair width was used in the analysis of stair flow efficiency. The results 

of the Hawkes model showed that incremental increases in stair width did not show a significant 

increase in average stair flow across the building sample in this study. 

On first glance, it seems that these results simply state that increasing the stair width does not 

increase the overall stair flow. However, the results show that that is not necessarily the case. In 

fact, most of the models in Table 11 and Table 14 show a positive (power law) correlation 

between mean flow and effective width (R2

=0.39) and a positive (power law) correlation 

between mean flow and the dependent variables of total population in the stair and effective 

width of the stair (R2=0.59). These results are contradicted by the results displayed in Table 11 

that show a strong correlation between mean flow and the dependent variables total population of 

the stair and exit distance (R2=0.78), with effective width improving the correlation less than 

2 %. 

Some of this may be simply because typical building design calls for increased stair capacity 

(typically by increased stair width) as floor population in the building increases. In addition, 

effective width is well correlated with two other independent variables: travel distance and total 

population in the stairs. Thus, while the point process modeling results of this research do not 

show a significant relationship between stair effective width and mean flow, this study is not able 

to definitely state that incremental increases in stair width is inconsequential to mean stair flow. 

Another possible explanation for the contradiction in findings (on the effect of stair effective 

width) is the lack of variance in effective width among NIST-observed building samples. All of 

the buildings observed in this study are code-compliant buildings with effective stair widths 

ranging from 756 mm (29.75 in) to 1232 mm (48.5 in), with the majority (62 %) of stairs falling 

within the narrow range of 729 mm (28.7 in) to 813 mm (32 in). Additional observation and 

analysis of tall buildings in the United States and experimentation in a laboratory setting of 
94 

evacuations using a wider range of stair widths are needed to quantify the benefits (or lack 

thereof) of incremental stair widths versus the exit lane theories24. 

Riser Height: In the correlations, it should be noted that if the building occupancy type, Btype, is 

not included then the stair riser height, sriser, would also test as significant. The reason can be 

seen in Figure 16. There are several buildings in both type 2 residential and type 1 nonresidential with stair riser heights, sriser, of 0.16 m but only type 2 buildings have lower risers and 

only type 1 buildings have taller risers. In effect the riser height can act as a flag for the type of 

building. Thus, while all the buildings were consistent with building code requirements 

allowable differences in stair riser height happened to also correlate with building occupancy 

type. 

Riser Height (m)

0.14 0.15 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.19 0.20 0.21

Occupation Type

1

2

Riser Height vs Occupancy Type

Figure 16. Riser height vs. occupant type flag (1 - non-residential, 2 - residential) 

In addition to the average intensities, it is of interest to examine the relation of the three 

parameters, μ, α, and β that make up the intensity function since they provide information on the 

interactions between occupants during evacuation. Table 15 presents information for μ, similar 

to that presented for the average intensity in Table 14. 

None of the building parameters tested passed the significance test correlating μ with exit times. 

While Ptotal and Btype tested as significant for the pre-observation time μ, they only explain 21 % 

of the variation. Interestingly, the sign for number of occupants is opposite of what it is in the 

 

24 Consideration of exit lanes should also account for the number of doors (and door width) placed at the bottom of 

the stairs. 
95 

correlation of average intensity. For travel time, the sign of the coefficient for Dexit is the same 

both for the μ as it is for the average intensity, however, Ptotal is not significant. For both preobservation time and travel time,  are lower for residences than for non-residences. Since  is 

analogous to the background or underlying mean flow, this fits with the observations made in 

section 5.2. 

Table 15. Building parameters that correlate with  determined by LLS and Bayesian inference 

Linear Least Squares

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Time   Travel Time Total Exit Time

Coefficient p value Coefficient p value Coefficient p value

R2 0.26       0.0   

Ptotal, 1 ‐0.015 0.020        

Dexit, 2    ‐0.049 0.005    

Btype, 3 ‐0.064 0.015  ‐0.18 0.005    

0 0.13 0.005 0.45 0.005    

         

Bayesian Inference

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Time Travel Time Total Exit Time

Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95 % CI

DIC ‐101.9   ‐69.3   ‐129.4   

Ptotal, 1 ‐0.014 [‐0.03, ‐0.001]     0.002 [‐0.005,0.01]

Dexit, 2    ‐0.037 [‐0.06,‐0.02] ‐0.003 [‐0.01, 0.003]

Btype, 3 ‐0.06 [‐0.11,‐0.01]  ‐0.15 [‐0.22, ‐0.8] ‐0.018 [‐0.05,0.01]

0 0.12 [0.05,0.19] 0.36 [0.25, 0.47] 0.033 [‐0.02, 0.01]

Ptotal is the total population of evacuees using the stair, Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by an 

evacuee in the stair, Btype is the building type (office or residential occupancy), and 0 is a constant in 

the linear model from eq. (19). 

5.4.2 Clustering of Occupants During Egress

Occupant exit times are not uniformly distributed. The plots in Figure E-1 in Appendix E 

illustrate this. There were short periods of very intense flow and periods of very low intensity 

flow due to occupant interactions. Thus, exit times are irregular, cluster and pose a challenge for 

modeling exit flow. In order to better understand the dynamics of occupant egress, it is necessary 

to formulate causes of clustering and then to incorporate them into an explanatory model. The 

phenomenon of clustering, also called grouping or platooning is not new. Clustering has been 

observed in high rise building evacuations and is discussed in the literature, but without technical 

analysis, see Pauls [57], Kagawa [36] and Proulx [3]. Hoskins [56] observed that the movement 

speed of those following the first person in a cluster was correlated to the speed of the leading 

person for selected stairs from this data set. Finally, Baker studied platooning in high rise 

buildings and his thesis contains additional references [82]. 
96 

One way to better understand clustering in occupant egress is to divide decisions made by 

occupants during an evacuation into those driven by internal mechanisms, i.e. arising from 

endogenous events and those decisions arising from exogenous events. Exogenous events are 

those driven by training, the urgency to exit the building quickly in face of an emergency and 

similar mechanisms. Endogenous events are driven by things like human to human interaction, 

etc. The Hawkes model allows one to measure the level of endogeneity in occupant egress, 

because the Hawkes intensity is separated into background intensity and an intensity driven by 

internal events. The background intensity parameter μ reflects the Poisson nature of the traffic, 

with the duration between events occurring independently and randomly with rate μ. When the 

events bunch together, they are no longer Poisson and this reflects the internal mechanisms 

interfering with descent. 

An occupant with exit time ti is either a “mother” or a “daughter” event of another point in the 

process. The parameter μ, the background intensity determines the rate mother events occur, 

which may or may not trigger second order events (daughter events), which can trigger third 

order events, and so. That is, a mother event occurring at rate μ can, through successive 

generations, create a cluster of events. These successive generations represent endogenously 

propelled events due to internal components and interaction within the stair. The branching ratio, 

n, is defined as the proportion mother events generate offspring events and is defined by the ratio 

[ ( )]

[ ( )]

E t

n

E t

 



  (20) 

The intensity25, λ(t), by definition satisfies ( ) ( ) ( )

t t s t e dN s     

    , thus for moment 

stationary intensities 

 

 

 

 

 

( )

( )

( )

( )

( )

0

( ) ( )

( )

( )

( )

( )

t t s

t t s

t t s

t t s

s

E t E e dN s

e dE N s

e E s ds

E t e ds

E t e ds











 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 



 



 

     

 

 

 

 











 (21) 

Solving gives an expression for the branching ratio 

( )

0

[ ( )]

[ ( )]

E t s n e ds

E t

    

 

       (22) 

 

25 The three parameters in the Hawkes model, μ, α, and β provide a quantitative measure of the background intensity, 

the likelihood of formation of clusters of occupants, and the size of these clusters during the evacuation, 

respectively. 
97 

For general point processes, α/β is taken as the branching ratio even though the process may not 

be stationary. The branching ratio provides a simple characterization of traffic within a stair, in 

particular its susceptibility to internal shocks to the traffic. On average, for n < 1, 1 - n proportion 

of occupants arrive at the exit door without being affected by internal mechanisms. For fixed μ, 

as the branching ratio increases, the intensity of the traffic decreases. From eq. (18), 

( ) 1

1 t E t n   

 



       

H (23) 

Figure 17 shows the relationship for the data from this study. The average, 0

1 ( )

t

s ds

t

 , can be 

substituted for the left-hand side of eq. (23) and the plot below illustrates that this substitution 

works well. 

Figure 17. Fundamental relationship between branching ratio and average intensity with data 

from 31 stair evacuation travel times. 

Fruin [37] and Paul's [57] research on flow rates is used and referenced by fire safety engineers 

today. One of their results relates occupant density D in persons/m2

 to flow rate. For Fs, the flow 

per unit stair width, they found the following relation 

2 F kD akD s   (24) 
98 

where a and k are constants. One obvious diagnostic check for the point process approach is to 

determine if the average intensity satisfies this relationship with D. In Figure 18, the mean 

intensity, 0

1 ( )

t

s ds

t

 is plotted against stair density. Here, stair density is defined as the 

average number of persons per floor divided by (the linear length of the stair between floors 

times the effective width of the stair). The model fit yields an R2 of 0.74. 

Figure 18. Point process intensity compared to stair density. Note quadratic form consistent with 

current relationship between flow and density. 

To understand the impact of building design parameters on the branching ratio, those parameters 

that impact α are first considered. Table 16 shows the building parameters that correlate with α. 

For both travel time and exit time, the LLS and Bayesian methods provide very similar answers. 

LLS values are all within the credible confidence interval for the median of the Bayesian 

inference. 

For pre-observation time, the 95 % CI in the Bayesian results include 0 and values of the 

coefficients are fairly close to 0 relative to the range. Ptotal is not 0.00 but rounds to 0.00 to the 

nearest hundredth. The interpretation of these differences is not clear. While these variables pass 

the significance test using LLS, Bayesian inference seems to indicate that there is little difference 

between the median values of the credible CI and 0. Since a model is being fit to pre-observation 

time, it is not unreasonable to wonder if stair parameters impact the pre-observation time. So, 

whereas there is a significant correlation using LLS, it seems that the better to choice is to 

assume that there is no correlation between stair parameters and pre-observation α. 

 
99 

Table 16. Building parameter correlations with α from LLS and Bayesian inference 

Linear Least Squares

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Travel Exit

Coefficient p value Coefficient p value Coefficient p value

R2 0.49    0.51    0.59   

Btype ‐0.12 0.005  ‐0.32 0.005  ‐0.048 0.030

weff 0.09 0.090        

stread ‐0.96 0.105        

Landing Door

Location

     0.016 0.025

Dexit      0.012 0.010

Ptotal ‐0.13 0.020     ‐0.022 0.005

0 0.29 0.020 0.40 0.005 0.13 0.005

        

Bayesian Inference

Building

parameters, i

Pre‐observation Travel Exit

Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95 % CI Coefficient 95% CI

DIC  ‐101.9   ‐69.3   ‐129.4   

Btype ‐0.019 [‐0.11,0.08]  ‐0.32 [‐0.48, ‐0.18] ‐0.056 [‐0.10.‐0.01]

weff 0.048 [‐0.21, 0.28]     

stread 0.16 [‐1.4, 1.8]        

Landing Door

Location

     0.016 [0.001,0.03]

Dexit      0.013 [0.004, 0.02]

Ptotal 0.00 [‐0.03, 0.01]    ‐0.021 [‐0.03,‐0.01]

0 0.0045 [‐0.43, 0.54] 0.39 [0.34, 0.45] 0.11 [0.03, 0.20]

Ptotal is the total population of evacuees using the stair, Dexit is the maximum distance travelled 

by an evacuee in the stair, stread is the tread depth, weff is the effective stair width, Btype is the 

building type (office or residential occupancy), and 0 is a constant in the linear model from eq. (19).

In terms of correlations with β, there is only one parameter that correlates: α. Figure 19 plots α

and β for all three cases, except two outliers. They are in stair 2 in building 10 for both the preobservation time and exit time. As noted before, this stair is somewhat unique in the number of 

people using stair travel devices. The figure is β versus α, so that the slope is the branching ratio. 

Correlations using both a power law and linear relationship were tested to see which provided 

the best correlation. For LLS the R2 was 0.93 for a linear relationship and 0.86 for the power law. 

For Bayesian inference, the DIC is -299.5 for the linear relationship and -283.3 for the power 

law. So, the following parameters were obtained from both methods as shown in Table 17. 
100 

Table 17. The results of fitting α in terms of β. Extra significant figures added to demonstrate the 

closeness of the results. 

Method c β

LLS 0.0291 0.6075

Bayesian inference 0.0293 0.6070

Both methods yield the result that approximately 61 % of people in the stair evacuations were 

interacting with each other. 

Beta

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2

Alpha

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Pre-observation time

Travel time

Exit time

Linear Fit y = 0.607x + 0.029, R2 = 0.93

Figure 19. β vs. α and the linear fit. 

The factors listed in Table 16 characterize the interaction between occupants. This means that 

occupants evacuating from residential buildings have less interaction than those in nonresidential buildings in all three cases. For pre-observation time, there is more interaction as 

effective width increases. It should be noted that pre-observation time is not the same as preevacuation time. In fact, at peak densities on a stair landing, the crowding slows people as they 

enter the stairs. So the interaction between people entering the stairs and people already on the 

stairs reduces the interaction with other people entering the stairs. The wider effective width 

would allow people to enter the stair landing from both higher in the building and from the 

building floor together, possibly by reducing congestion on the landing. 

For exit time, the door position for those entering the stairs near the same point that people are 

leaving the landing seems to increase the amount of interaction identified at the exit than having 

the door near where people enter the landing from upper floors. The longer the distance travelled 

down the stairs to the exit, the less the interaction. 
101 

The α for travel time does not correlate with any of the building parameters, with the exception 

of the type of occupancy. This is because the values for α in residential buildings were all lower 

values than the values calculated for non-residential buildings. 

From the discussion above it is clear that the Hawkes model can be very useful in the 

understanding and characterizing of clustering of egress flows and that the analysis is in many 

ways consistent with earlier analyses of occupant flow as a function of stair density. There is still 

research to be done and most importantly there needs to be more data available. 

 

5.5 Use of the Data for Detailed Analysis of Evacuee Movement

The data presented in this report can also be used to better characterize occupant movement. In 

this section, data from one of the buildings is analyzed in more detail to better characterize 

occupant movement on stair landings. First, the assumptions employed for the representation and 

modeling of evacuee behavior on stair landings are reviewed and discussed. Next, an exemplary 

application of the approach is presented for the study of human behavior on stair landings. Data 

from one of the six-story buildings (Building 12) are used. 

5.5.1 Introduction		

In Section 4 of this report, three main variables are employed for the analysis of occupant 

movement on stairs, namely 1) walking speeds 2) flows and 3) people densities. Hoskins and 

Milke [68] reviewed the current assumptions used to calculate speed and densities on stairs and 

have highlighted that data on evacuation movement on stairs may lack information on the 

assumptions employed, thus reducing the usability of the datasets. 

These issues are reflected in the use of experimental data for the calibration of egress model 

inputs. Most of the egress models available are micro-simulation tools, i.e., individuals are 

treated as autonomous entities [83]. Nevertheless, datasets employed for the development and 

calibration of those models are based on average populations and hypotheses rather than an 

individual analysis of occupant behaviors. Occupants may be assumed to walk on a predetermined travel path (generally the shortest path available or an assumed fixed route) and 

average deterministic assumptions are used to represent the actions of the individuals whose 

behaviors are instead probabilistic. The use of deterministic assumptions – intended as 

assumptions where no randomness is involved - to model occupant behaviors can decrease the 

accuracy of predictions compared to a probabilistic representation of people movement [84]. 

 

Evacuation data are generally not presented or used in a probabilistic manner. The closest that 

researchers come to a probabilistic description of people movement during evacuation is the use 

of distributions (e.g. a distribution of pre-observation times, a distribution of movement speeds, 

etc.) [2, 64]. The probabilistic approach to study people movement during evacuations in 

different environments has been rarely employed (e.g., the building egress model proposed by 

Fraser-Mitchell [85] or the train egress model by Capote et al. [86]). In addition, datasets - on 

which egress models are based - are not collected with the aim of providing a probabilistic 

representation of people movement. 
102 

To address this issue, a probabilistic approach has been proposed to present and use data on 

evacuation movement which is independent from the assumptions employed [87]. The approach 

relies on the reconstruction of the travel paths walked by the occupants and the recording of the 

time spent by the occupants during their journey. The probabilities associated with different 

travel paths, walking speeds and the space occupied by the evacuees during their movement can 

be then calculated. 

The use of the probabilistic approach permits the analysis of the factors impacting evacuation on 

stairs because it increases the accuracy of data collected by reconstructing occupant movement. 

For instance, previous studies [48, 49] have shown that the understanding of occupant behaviors 

on stair landings is crucial since it may substantially affect the prediction of the evacuation 

process (and subsequent evacuation time calculations) given the occurrence of behaviors such as 

merging, deference/overtaking, etc. 

Data from an evacuation drill performed in a six-story building (building 12) have been 

employed to demonstrate this approach. 215 individual trajectories on stair landings have been 

collected. The impact of two factors have been investigated, namely 1) the number of people on 

stair landings (crowding conditions) and 2) the type of interactions between the occupants. 

Interactions between occupants have been studied using a set of conditions based on a time-line 

which permitted the classification of different types of interactions, e.g., merging, 

deference/overtaking, etc. 

The benefits of this approach are presented in relation to the current methods adopted in 

engineering practice to represent people movement on stairs. The present work also describes the 

advantages of the analysis of people movement data employing the new probabilistic approach 

from a modeling perspective. In fact, individual evacuation movement data can be aggregated 

using conditional probabilities, or employing a discretization of the space in a grid or a 

combination of both. 

5.5.2 Tracking Travel Paths

The use of a probabilistic approach for the analysis of evacuation movement data relies on the 

tracking of individual occupant trajectories. Tracking individual trajectories allows the analyst to 

record travel path distance and area usage during evacuation (as shown by Nilsson and Peterson 

[88] - in this case, stair landings). An example of the new probabilistic approach to better 

represent stair evacuation data is presented in this section. The case study uses data from video 

recordings collected from Building 12. 

 

The video analysis is focused on the study of the occupant travel paths, occupant usage of the 

landing area, and occupant walking speeds. A systematic approach has been used to track the 

travel paths from the video recordings. This method combines the use of a video analysis tool 

and measurements in CAD drawings. The observations focus on tracking the occupant’s 

trajectories as well as the times when the occupants entered and left the space. 
103 

The analysis consisted of five steps: 

Step 1: The video recordings are imported into a video analysis tool. This method is used to treat 

the uncertainties associated with the distortion of the recorded image in relation to the type of 

camera employed and the camera placement. Reference lines/grids are drawn on the floor on top 

of a physical grid made of squared tiles (they depend on the video set, in this example they are 

30 cm on each side) that is visible in the video recordings. At the same time, a CAD tool is used 

to reconstruct the plane configuration of the landing (i.e., not distorted). An additional sub-grid 

(made of 10 cm wide squares) is overlaid onto it using the CAD tool in order to further increase 

the resolution of the measurements (See Figure 20). 

Step 2: The location of the door into the landing is identified. 

Step 3: Given the observed Fruin’s level of service [37] on the landings and the availability of 

the physical grid made of tiles, it was possible to track the position of the feet of the occupants 

with a high level of accuracy directly from the video recordings. The trajectories of the 

occupants are therefore reconstructed following a point placed between the feet of each occupant 

in the grid (see point A Figure 21). In line with the dimensions of the cells of the sub-grid, the 

uncertainty of the position of the occupant is estimated to be always less than 20 cm. 

Step 4: The trajectories are reconstructed in the plane configuration of the landings in the CAD 

tool. 

Step 5: Given the trajectories of the individuals within the landing, it is possible to calculate the 

lengths of each travel path (starting from the point where occupants entered the landing until the 

point they left it). 

Travel paths can be presented by a distribution of probabilities associated with different travel 

path lengths, termed here as Probable Travel Paths (PTP). Conditional probabilities can be used 

to understand the impact of specific conditions on occupant behaviors. An example is the 

analysis of the number of people on the landing when the occupant is approaching it. PTP 

lengths of the complete dataset of probable travel paths for Building 12 are presented (see Figure 

22) considering the crowding conditions (condition 1) against their corresponding reference 

paths26. The comparison with reference paths (h in Figure 22 is used to indicate the observed 

path lengths as a ratio to a reference path, here taken to be the path down the middle of the stairs 

and around a landing, consistent with eq. (4) in section 3.3) is employed to evaluate the impact of 

the number of people in the landings other than the reference occupant on the length of the travel 

paths. Additional details and analysis can be found in reference [89]. 

The most probable travel paths in the complete sample are often shorter than the hypothetical 

paths (19 % of the sample are in the -25%<h<-15% and -15%<h<-5% intervals). Data show that 

occupants walking alone in the landing tend to walk shorter travel paths than the reference paths 

assumed [68], i.e., the observed most probable travel path length is from 35% to 25% shorter 

than the reference paths in the case of sinistral stairs and light density conditions. 

 

26 For this analysis, the reference travel path is taken consistent with the calculations of travel distance and speed 

described in Section 2.2. See Figure 4 for an overview of the travel distance. 
104 

Physical (distorted) grid made of squared tiles   Artificial (distorted) overlapped grid

Artificial (distorted) grid reconstructed in CAD   Artificial (plane) grid and sub‐grid

reconstructed in CAD

Figure 20. Example of the video analysis method for a stair landing. 

Figure 21. Schematic representation of the occupants. Point A represents the point used as 

reference for the reconstruction of the trajectories (the middle point between the feet). 

 
105 

Figure 22. Complete sample of PTP lengths (black bars) against data presented compared to the 

additional number of people in the landings (grey bars). The x axis is the same in the four graphs 

and it represents the relative differences of the experimental path paths (h) and reference travel 

paths. The percentages indicate the intervals of relative differences to the reference paths. 

5.5.3 Tracking occupant walking speeds

A systematic approach has been employed to calculate the walking speeds of the occupants in 

relation to their actual travel path. 

The analysis has been performed in three steps: 

0

20

40

60

80

100

PTP

(%)

0 additional people on the

landings

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

80

100

PTP

(%)

1‐2 additional people on

the landings

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

80

100

PTP

(%)

3‐4‐5 additional people

on the landings

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

80

100

PTP

(%)

Relative differences to reference paths

More than 5 additional

people on the landings

Complete Sample
106 

Step 1. The actual travel path length of each individual is used as reference for the calculation of 

the walking speeds. 

Step 2. The time and position where they enter (either from the door or the stair) and leave the 

landing is recorded using the video analysis tool. 

Step 3. The individual speeds are calculated dividing the actual travel path of each occupant for 

the corresponding individual time spent in the landing. 

The probabilities associated with different walking speeds, the Probable Walking Speeds (PWS), 

can be calculated. The probabilities are obtained in relation to different conditions such as 

congestion levels, merging flows, etc. The study of PWS provides additional understanding on 

the behaviors of the occupants (if compares with the study of PTPs only) since it takes into 

consideration both the spatial and the temporal information. 

Figure 23 presents data on probable walking speeds in relation to condition 1, i.e. the number of 

people in the landings other than the reference occupant. The most probable walking speeds are 

respectively in the interval 0.75 m/s – 1 m/s in the cases of 0 or 1-2 additional people in the 

landings (respectively 40.6 % and 55.7 %). Most probable walking speeds are lower (in the 

interval 0.5 m/s – 0.75 m/s) in the case of 3-4-5 and more than 5 additional people in the 

landings (respectively 52.0 % and 50.0 %). Data show also that probable walking speeds tend to 

decrease with the increase of the number of people in the landing. Additional details and analysis 

can be found in reference [89]. 

 
107 

Figure 23. PWS (expressed in %) in relation to the number of occupants in the landing (condition 

1). Walking speeds are indicated within the intervals where the speeds (x in the figure axis) fall. 

5.5.4 Tracking occupant usage of landing areas

Although travel paths provide useful information on occupant behaviors on stair landing areas, 

current engineering calculations assume hypothetical area usage to calculate people densities 

[68]. In this context, the tracking of occupant travel paths may be employed to evaluate current 

assumptions and obtain a more accurate representation of occupant usage of landing areas. This 

permits the performance of calculations based on the experimental travel paths rather than 

hypothetical assumptions. A systematic approach has been employed to monitor the sub-areas of 

the landings occupied by the evacuees over the entire building evacuation. 

The analysis has been performed in four steps: 

0

20

40

60

PWS

(%) 0 additional people on

the landing

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

PWS

(%) 1‐2 additional people in

the landing

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

PWS

(%) 3‐4‐5 additional people

in the landing

Complete Sample

0

20

40

60

PWS

(%)

Intervals of walking speeds (m/s)

More than 5 additional

people in the landing

Complete Sample
108 

Step 1. The trajectories described the previous section are used as a foundation for the 

development of area usage as well as the grids drawn in CAD. 

Step 2. The areas occupied by the occupants are produced by assuming an average body size of 

the occupants equal to an ellipse with a diameter of 0.5 m [90, 91] (see Figure 24). This 

assumption is made since travel paths refer to the center line of the body while the body size is 

representative of the space occupied by a person (which includes shoulders). For instance, 

different body widths may be employed for different population types (e.g., children, adults). 

The area occupied by the evacuees is therefore represented as a moving ellipse and it is 

simplified by a perpendicular bar moving in the space (see Figure 25). 

Step 3. Each time that the lines representing the occupants touched a cell of the grid, the 

individual is assigned to that grid cell throughout their entire journey on the landing. Occupant 

ellipses in the same location can be part of as many as three different grid cells in this example. 

Step 4. The actual usage of different portions of the space occupied by the evacuees is produced 

for each landing by counting the total number of times an ellipse touched each grid cell. 

Figure 24. Occupants are modelled as ellipses of fixed dimensions. 

 

Figure 25. Reconstruction of the area occupied by one occupant within a CAD tool. 

The information on the portions of the space occupied by the evacuees is used to obtain the 

probabilities of landing area usage. Also in this case, the probabilities can be calculated in 

relation to different conditions (in order to obtain conditional probabilities) such as congestion 

levels, merging flows, etc., producing Probable Effective Areas (PEAs). PEAs represent the 

probabilities associated with the usage of different grid cells, i.e. the space occupied by the 

evacuees during their movement. The PEAs may be represented using transparencies 

proportional to the probability that the occupants (shown as percentages within each element of 
109 

the grid) occupy a certain portion of the space in the 2D representation. 3D histograms are also 

used to represent the usage of the space. 

Figure 26 shows a sample set of PEAs for the two stairs in Building 12. A legend is 

used to present the data, i.e. transparencies are used to show PEAs (expressed in %) in 

proportion to the space usage (shown to the right). Arrows are used in the figures to 

represent the zones where occupants enter or leave the landing. Since landings present 

different geometrical configurations, data from the two landings are presented 

separately. Landings are split in individual cells of approximately 0.12 m by 0.12 m 

and probabilities of usage are presented in each cell. PEAs are presented for the 

complete sample of 215 occupants in stair A and stair B. Data for all occupants in the two 

different landings show a similar space usage, i.e., there are portions of the space on the outer 

boundary of the landings that are rarely used (see white zones in Figure 26). Additional details 

and analysis can be found in reference [89]. 

PEA (%) – Stair A – All occupants

PEA (%) – Stair B – All occupants

Figure 26. Example of 2D and 3D representation of PEA (expressed in percent) for all occupants 

of the two stairs in building 12. 
110 

5.6 Use of the Data to Inform Egress modeling

Finally, the data collected in the present study are also intended to facilitate its use in the 

development of stair movement algorithms in egress models or comparison with egress model 

results to evaluate the predictive capability of the models. This section provides a sample 

comparison of some of the stair data with the results of one egress model. The comparisons show 

that the accuracy of the predictions depends on the level of detail included in the model input 

that has implications both on model validation as well as the use of the data and models for 

performance-based design applications. 

5.6.1 Network Model

EvacuatioNZ is a coarse network model being developed at the University of Canterbury in 

which building spaces are described by a network of nodes which are connected together by 

paths [92]. The advantages of a network model such as EvacuatioNZ are the ease with which 

simple building geometries can be created without the need for detailed CAD-like drawings or 

extensive user input and the relatively short computational time needed to run a simulation. For 

the scenarios examined in this study, typical run times were around 400 s for 40 repeated 

simulations (e.g. Stair 8N with 665 agents) on a regular laptop PC. Geometrical input into 

EvacuatioNZ can be aided with the use of a third party graphical interface called yEd [93] 

(version 3.11) and there is also the capability to use this third party software to generate 

graphical output and simple animations. Version 2.8 of the EvacuatioNZ software is used in this 

study. 

In EvacuationNZ, nodes are defined in terms of length and width dimensions and connections 

are defined in terms of their length and other characteristics. Building occupants are represented 

as agents with their own behavioral and personal attributes. The user has the ability to randomly 

distribute a fixed number of agents across any defined range of specified nodes when each 

simulation is executed. The model includes a range of exit behavior strategies, including those 

that require the minimum travel distance to any ‘safe’ node or the minimum travel distance to a 

user-specified ‘safe’ node. The network has to have one or more ‘safe’ nodes which represent 

final destinations for agents. The choice of exit behavior can be probabilistically assigned to 

groups of agents. Pre-observation times can be represented through the use of distributions with 

the shape and statistics appropriately selected by the user. 

The model has the ability to employ a range of distribution shapes whenever a statistical 

distribution can be specified for an input parameter and these distributions can be truncated at a 

specified upper and/or lower limit. Distributions can be uniform, normal, lognormal, and Weibull 

shapes. 

Simulations are run over a defined time period or until all occupants (or agents) have reached a 

‘safe’ node. The simulation is broken into user-specified time steps and previous benchmarking 

suggests that a time step of 1 s gives appropriate results. 
111 

The movement speed of agents is a function of density, stair dimensions, individual 

characteristics and the like. The model can set an agent’s unimpeded movement speed as a 

function of age, sex and BMI [9] but without any other data available, the maximum walking 

speed is set to 1.20 m/s to correspond with Gwynne and Rosenbaum [59]. For occupant densities 

greater than 0.54 agents/m2

, movement speeds are modified using the equations provided in the 

SFPE Handbook [59] such that the relationship between speed of travel S (m/min) and occupant 

density D (agents per m2

) is given by 

Sk D   t 1 0.266  (25) 

For level corridors or doorways, the SFPE Handbook gives  0.84 t k while the movement on 

stairs is adjusted for the riser and tread dimensions such that   5.0 8.51 RGkt  where G is the 

length of the stair tread going and R is the riser height of each step. In some of the buildings 

studied here the step dimensions were outside of the values given in the SFPE Handbook but it is 

assumed that the equation is still appropriate. 

Movement in crowded conditions is based on the equations provided by Gwynne and 

Rosenbaum [59] such that the relationship between speed of travel and occupant density is given 

by a linearly decreasing function for occupant densities greater than 0.54 people/m2. 

Uncongested movement speeds can be fixed by the user or determined by the use of a 

distribution. The model also accounts for the effect of queues at constrictions using the effective 

width concept [3] where a 0.15 m boundary is used for doors or stair side-walls and typically 

0.09 m from the center of a stair handrail depending on the configuration. The formation of a 

queue will depend on the presentation rate at the constriction and it is possible that no queue will 

form. An agent can only move through a constriction into a path if the occupant density in the 

downstream node is less than a maximum occupant density specified in the model. A maximum 

occupant density of 2.75 agents/m2

 has been found to give suitable results in previous work [94]. 

5.6.2 Representation of Agents in the Simulations

In order to simulate the evacuation drills as closely as possible, the ideal situation is to have the 

exact number of people on each floor, their exact stair entry time, and their individual 

uncongested walking speed. Having this data would mean the simulations would then be 

assessing the capability of the model to adequately represent the stairs and the movement of the 

agents by minimizing other uncertainties. However since it was not practical to record or obtain 

this level of detail from the drills, it means the modeling has to deal with the uncertainties 

regarding the floors on which people started, their stair entry time etc. 

On the one hand, the modeling should only consider those occupants for which sufficient data 

are available so that a meaningful comparison can be made. However, since the occupants that 

have been neglected from the modeling would have still been present in the drill and potentially 

affected the results, then those occupants should be simulated. Several modeling scenarios are 

possible: 
112 

 Randomly distribute a known number of occupants across all floors and apply a global 

stair entry time distribution. This approach is applied to all of the stairs considered in this 

study. 

 Assign a known number of occupants to floors and apply a global stair entry distribution. 

This approach is applied to selected stairs where sufficient data are available. 

 Assign each agent with the exact starting floor and stair entry time. Again this approach 

is applied to selected stairs where sufficient data are available. 

 Agents can be distributed over lower and upper floors that were used in the drill. 

As an example of the use of the data from this report, only the first scenario is presented. 

 

In scenarios where firefighters entered the stairs, the effects of this have not been included in the 

modeling. 

5.6.3 Representation of Stairs in Model

In order to model the stairs, the network was constructed to closely represent the actual 

geometry. Each floor level consists of a node to represent the floor, a node to represent the floor 

landing, a node to represent the mid-level landing and two nodes to represent the stair flights. 

Stair-type connections are used to link landing nodes with stair nodes and level-type connections 

to create other links (see Figure 27). 

Landing travel distances are modeled as the longest dimension. Stair travel lengths are modeled 

using the diagonal distance calculated from the step tread and riser dimensions, and the number 

of steps. The effective width of the stairs was determined by having a wall / handrail boundary 

on the ‘outer’ edge and an open handrail on the ‘inner’ edge. 

Floor nodes are arbitrarily set to 100 m by 100 m to ensure sufficient space for agents. 

Additional agents are set so that they are effectively positioned at the door leaving the floor so 

there is no traveling required. Since the information from the cameras gives the entry time of a 

person into a stair, then in the modeling, the connection length between the floor and its landing 

is 0.01 m and a 10 m wide door constriction is arbitrarily used so that no queuing occurs and 

agents immediately enter the landing once their stair entry delay has elapsed. 
113 

Figure 27. Sample stair geometry and representation as a series of nodes and arcs 

5.6.4 Effect of stair entry time

The ability of EvacuatioNZ to enable the model user to specify pre-observation time 

distributions is used to simulate the stair entry times. Pre-observation stair entry delays from the 

building data are used to estimate a distribution of stair entry times for each stair. Although some 

datasets do not fit any particular distribution particularly well, MacLennan et al. [95] suggest that 

a Weibull distribution is the most suitable way to describe the probability distribution of preobservation times (they also note that other distributions may be equally appropriate). Therefore, 

the stair entry delay times are all represented by Weibull distributions for consistency with the 

lower bound fixed at zero (see Table 18). For later simulations, the actual starting floor location 

and stair entry delay times for each building occupant are also used. Table 18 also shows that 

three stairs in Building 7 have less than 50 % of the stair entry floor and time delay values 

measured, which limits comparisons with the simulations. 

 

Floor 2

Floor 1
114 

Table 18. Table of distributions: percentage of occupants modeled, percentage with stair entry 

time 

Building /

stair

designation  

Percentage

of

occupants

with final

exit time

recorded

Percentage of

occupants with

stair entry delay

time recorded

Percentage of

occupants with

entry floor

recorded

Stair entry Weibull

distribution parameters

(alpha, beta)

4A 95 100 100 1.1742, 155.89

4B 97 99 100 1.7281, 126.17

5A 99 100 100 1.5229, 191.99

5B 97 100 100 1.5940, 168.41

6‐5 87 100 100 1.9910, 191.61

6‐5A 95 99 95 2.0847, 261.34

6‐6 94 100 98a 2.4361, 234.33

6‐6A 100 90 100 1.9133, 228.86

7‐1 97 49 49b 1.8119, 230.85

7‐3 94 99 100b 1.9433, 178.22

7‐7 92 25 37b 1.4531, 237.57

7‐12 99 49 49b 2.1499, 220.18

8N 97 99 99 1.5135, 231.33

8S 99 91 100 1.8857, 166.88

a – Stair 6‐6 has 2 occupants with no stair entry time but a stair exit time that can be used to

approximate their stair entry delay.

b – Entry floor not recorded, only floor on which occupants were first seen.

Stair 4A Stair 4B

Figure 28. Measured stair entry delay times and derived Weibull distribution for Building 4. 

0.000

0.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.010

0.012

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Probability density

Time (s)

0.000

0.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.010

0.012

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Probability density

Time (s)
115 

5.6.5 Baseline Results

Table 19 and Figure 29 summarize the model predictions of total evacuation time for several of 

the buildings included in this report. Since the Stair 6-6 and Stair 6-6A joined on the 4th floor and 

it is not clear which exit occupants then used, no further analysis is reported here. For these 

simulations, agents are placed randomly on floors of the building with a global stair entry delay 

for the occupants estimated from the distributions from Table 18. Modeling results from forty 

simulations for each stair are shown. Additional simulations would provide better estimates of 

the model variations, but are sufficient for the current examples.

Figure 30 shows the measured and simulation times for 95 % of occupants to reach the exit. 

Excluding Building 6, there is at most a ±17 % difference between the simulations and the 

measured values. Simulations for Building 6 show faster simulated times of up to 26 % although, 

as noted previously, the data available for this building are more limited than the other buildings 

analyzed. 

Table 19. Summary of total evacuation time from selected fire drills compared to the range of 

total times from simulations. 

Building / Stair

Designation

Total Evacuation

Time

(s)

Evacuation Time

for 95 % of

Occupants

(s)

Simulated Total

Evacuation Time

(s)

Simulated

Evacuation Time

for 95 % of

Agents

(s)

4A 1339 564 712 ± 24 474 ‐ 608

4B 1091 631 617 ± 23 561 ‐ 601

5A 1026 601 666 ± 13 610 ‐ 643  

5B 841 587 584 ± 17 524 ‐ 558

6‐5 1066 838 1017 ± 55 826 ‐ 954

6‐5A 865 839 1108 ± 81 859 ‐ 982

7‐1 1032 707 736 ± 57 520 ‐ 595

7‐3 927 619 558 ± 36 466 ‐ 519

7‐7 1193 717 843 ± 33 544 ‐ 673

7‐12 612 517 600 ± 50 429 ‐ 507

8N 1576 1043 1212 ± 11 1139 ‐ 1189

8S 1086 922 943 ± 8 882 ‐ 920
116 

Figure 29. Total evacuation times from selected drills compared with EvacuatioNZ predictions 

(mean values with uncertainties expressed as one standard deviation. maximum and minimum 

times are shown by range bars). 

Figure 30. Evacuation times for 95 % of building occupants from selected drills compared with 

EvacuatioNZ predictions (maximum and minimum predicted values indicated). 

0

240

480

720

960

1200

1440

1680

4A4B5A5B6‐56‐5A7‐17‐37‐77‐128N8S

Total clearance time (s)

Building / stair designation

0

240

480

720

960

1200

4A4B5A5B6‐56‐5A7‐17‐37‐77‐12Clearance8N8S

time of 95

% of people (s)

Building / stair designation
117 

Typically, though not always, model-estimated times are much shorter than those measured in 

the drills. Comparison of total evacuation times from drills with simulated results has limited 

value as the times are influenced by the effect of a small number of people who exit the stairs at 

the end of the evacuation. Table 19 also includes the evacuation time for the first 95 % of 

building occupants which does not include these particularly late evacuees. An even more useful 

comparison is to examine the cumulative number of people who have exited the stairs as a 

function of time. Figure 31 through Figure 35 show the stair entry distribution and cumulative 

number of agents evacuees for several of the buildings studied. 

Stair 4A Stair 4B

Figure 31. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 4 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. 

Stair 5A Stair 5B

Figure 32. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 5 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. 

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 4A

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 4B

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 5A

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 5B
118 

Stair 6‐5 Stair 6‐5A

Figure 33. Cumulative number of people exiting Stair 6-5 and Stair 6-5A where simulations 

randomly assign floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. 

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 6‐5

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 6‐5A
119 

Stair 7‐1 Stair 7‐3

Stair 7‐7 Stair 7‐12

Figure 34. Cumulative number of people exiting Building 7 where simulations randomly assign 

floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. 

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 7‐1

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 7‐3

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 7‐7

0 240 480 720 960 1200

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

0 240 480 720 960 1200

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 7‐12
120 

Stair 8N Stair 8S

Figure 35. Cumulative number of people exiting Stair 8N and Stair 8S where simulations 

randomly assign floors to agents and use a global stair entry delay time. 

5.6.6 Discussion

EvacuatioNZ shows qualitatively similar results to stair flows from the drills. This modeling 

exercise illustrates the benefits of the data collated in this study as part of any effort to 

benchmark the capability of egress models. The work suggests how such data may need 

interpretation particularly if it is to be considered within a design context and points the way to 

further investigations. 

5.7 Discussion of Results

The Hawkes model predicts the intensity of the distribution of flow over time for each dependent 

variable of interest. The three parameters in the Hawkes model, μ, α, and β provide a quantitative 

measure of the background intensity, the likelihood of formation of clusters of occupants, and the 

size of these clusters during the evacuation, respectively. The model was used to estimate 

intensities for pre-observation time, stair travel time, and total evacuation time. The important 

factors that impact these times were consistent for all three of these times27. The number of 

people using the stair, building height (exit distance), and building type were found to be 

significant, with P values less than 0.02. For overall evacuation time, stair tread depth and height 

were also significant. It is notable that stair width was not found to be significant. Since stair 

widths in the study did not vary significantly from building to building, it is difficult to draw a 

strong conclusion. Still, small variations in stair width were not seen to significantly impact the 

flow in the stair. 

 

27 For both pre-observation time and total evacuation time, the intensity is representative of the flow of occupants 

out the exit door at the base of the stair. For stair travel time, occupants enter the stair at different times. Thus, the 

intensity is indicative of the total time taken traversing the stair, but the physical significance of this intensity is not 

as clear as it is for pre-observation time and total evacuation time. 

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440 1680

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440 1680

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 8N

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440 1680

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0 240 480 720 960 1200 1440 1680

Cumulative number of people

Time (s)

EvacuatioNZ

Stair 8S
121 

Clearly clustering impacts the speed of movement of occupants during building evacuation. As 

shown in Table 13, the branching ratio, α/β, is always less than unity, indicating some level of 

clustering of occupants within all of the stairs, regardless of crowding, stair width, door 

placement, etc. Point process modeling was able to quantify the level of interactions between 

occupants. 

Additional research would be needed to understand the reasons for and the impact of the 

observed clustering in the stairs. Still, point process modeling holds promise to be able to better 

capture the impact of occupant interactions in future egress models. 
122 

6 Summary 

This project provides a freely available set of raw data on evacuation-related people movement 

on stairs in the United States. The data of people movement on stairs consist of the times that 

each individual is observed by every video camera in every stair in every building observed by 

NIST (14 buildings total). Within the dataset, 11 of the 14 buildings were office buildings, and 3 

buildings were residential. Of the residential buildings, two of the buildings were exclusively 

labeled as assisted living facilities or elderly housing, which provided valuable evacuation timing 

data for people with mobility impairments and elderly occupants. A total of 5244 people (at a 

total of 173 camera locations) were observed over the 14 NIST-observed buildings, which 

ranged from 6 to 62 stories in height. 

Also accompanying the egress times in the database is detailed information on building and stair 

configuration for the buildings observed by NIST. Stair, horizontal corridor, and landing sizes 

throughout the building, as well as stair direction and door location from the floor into the stairs 

are provided. The inclusion of data on building and stair configuration allows analysts to 

evaluate travel distances, density, movement speeds, movement flows, and any other type of 

movement parameters that can be measured inside a stairway (e.g., passing behavior or merging 

behavior). These movement parameters can be determined for individual stairs, individual 

buildings, all office or residential buildings, or the entire dataset of 14 NIST-observed buildings, 

depending upon the types of questions analysts are required to answer. 

This report has studied the typical engineering variables used to describe stair movement during 

building evacuations, reviewed literature values for movement speeds, and presented data from 

new fire drill evacuations. While the report provides information to improve the technical 

foundation of stair egress in building codes and data for egress model validation and 

development, there is also the need for additional study of stair egress. The major conclusions 

and needs identified by the study are summarized below. 

6.1 Movement Speed

The mean movement speed for the 14 buildings evacuations studied was 0.44 m/s ± 0.19 m/s. 

This mean movement speed represented more than 22000 individual measurements in 30 stairs 

in 14 different buildings. The harmonic mean (rather than the more typical arithmetic mean) was 

seen as appropriate for calculating mean movement speeds for individuals traveling different 

distances. Details on calculating the overall mean value, mean values for each stair, and mean 

local movement speeds is included in Appendix B. 

There was considerable variation in local movement speeds. Individual local movement speeds 

ranged from 0.07 m/s to 1.7 m/s. Using a distribution of movement speeds rather than a single 

value should provide a more realistic representation of movement speed in stairs. Characteristics 

of the distribution would be the subject of additional study. 
123 

People needing assistance move significantly slower than the general population. In the two 

buildings where most residents required assistance to evacuate using stairs (Buildings 9 and 10), 

the mean movement speed was 0.28 m/s ± 0.17 m/s. 

Data from the current study are reasonably consistent with historical data. The use of historical 

data may still be appropriate within the scope and limitations of the original collection. 

The flow of occupants out the exit door at the bottom of the stairs was seen to be dependent 

largely on the number of occupants using the stair and the height of the building. The following 

correlation, with an R2 of 0.88, was found to fit the data: 

1

3

0.42 total

ave

exit

P F

D

      

 (26) 

where Fave is the mean flow out the exit door in persons/s, Ptotal is the total number of people 

using the stair, and Dexit is the maximum distance travelled by people using the stair. This 

correlation was found to work well for the middle 90 % of those exiting the stairs. In all stairs, 

there were a small number of outliers who evacuated early and late in the evacuation. These were 

seen to be a combination of those with building responsibility (floors wardens or first responders, 

for example), those who significantly delayed beginning evacuation (but who travelled at normal 

speeds during their evacuation), and a limited number of particularly slow evacuees. Still, the 

time for the early and late evacuees can impact the overall evacuation time for a stair. On 

average, the early and late evacuees each account for about 20 % of the total stair evacuation 

time with a wide range for both. Thus, estimation of evacuation time must include the preevacuation time (largely, the time taken by the early evacuees), the time taken by the bulk of the 

evacuees (taken the middle 90 % in the analysis in this report), and the added evacuation time for 

late evacuees. For the latter, a design margin is typically included in the estimates. 

6.2 Important Parameters that Effect Stair Egress

From regression modeling and Bayesian analysis of both the flow correlations (see section 5.3) 

and point process modeling (see section 5.4), the two most significant variables were the number 

of occupants using the stairs and the height of the building, with a clear regression between these 

variables and flow out of the stairs at the exit door. 

Stair width did not have a statistically significant impact on occupant flow for the buildings 

considered in this study. These findings are the result of the fact that effective width is well 

correlated with two other independent variables: travel distance and total population in the stairs. 

Thus, while the modeling results of this research do not show a significant relationship between 

stair effective width and mean flow, this project is not able to definitely state that incremental 

increases in stair width is inconsequential to mean stair flow. Some of this may be simply 

because typical building design calls for increased stair capacity (typically by increased stair 

width) as floor population in the building increases. Another possible explanation for the 

contradiction in findings (on the effect of stair effective width) is the lack of variance in effective 
124 

width among NIST-observed building samples. All of the buildings observed in this study are 

code-compliant buildings with effective stair widths ranging from 756 mm (29.75 in) to 1232 

mm (48.5 in), with the majority (62 %) of stairs falling within the narrow range of 729 mm (28.7 

in) to 813 mm (32 in). 

6.3 Techniques for Improved Egress modeling

In addition to providing data on occupant movement in stair egress, the report also included more 

detailed analysis of path selection and clustering. Implications of these analyses on egress 

modeling are summarized below. 

A detailed analysis of some of the data (see section 5.5) showed that both variation of movement 

speeds and path selection can be successfully described with a single parameter distribution for a 

base path. 

Sample comparisons of the data to an existing egress model demonstrate the usefulness of the 

data for model validation. These comparisons show that the level of detail in the model inputs 

can have a significant impact on the quality of the predictions. Additional analysis of the data 

would help better define the necessary range of inputs and their appropriate use in a range of 

egress models. 

Point process modeling was seen as a promising technique to quantitatively account for 

clustering of occupants during stair egress. Use of the Hawke’s point process model showed a 

consistent measure of clustering in all of the stairs, regardless of crowding, stair width, door 

placement, etc. Additional study would be required to better understand its applicability to egress 

modeling. 

6.4 Implications of the Data for Building Code Requirements

One of the main objectives of this report was to advance the technical foundation to life safetyrelated codes and standards for buildings. As mentioned earlier in this report (see Section 2.3), 

the International Building Code (IBC) [51] and NFPA’s Life Safety Code (LSC) [52] provide 

requirements for buildings in terms of capacity and usability. Capacity requirements ensure that 

the stairways are sized to allow the prescribed number of occupants (often referred to as the 

design load) to use the stairs in a timely manner. Usability requirements, on the other hand, 

ensure that the stairway construction does not impede safe use of the stairway. 

Stair Width: In terms of the capacity requirements, both the IBC and the LSC directly correlate 

incremental increases in stair width with increased capacity. More specifically, stair capacity 

factors (i.e., 5 mm (0.2 in) of required stair width per person on an occupied floor in the 

building) are used to calculate a required stair width (with a minimum stair width specified as 

1118 mm (44 in) wide in both the IBC and the LSC28. The LSC further requires an increase in 

 

28 The minimum requirement exists for stairways serving greater than 50 people, and less than 2000 people in the 

LSC. 
125 

the minimum stair width to 1422 mm (56 in) for buildings serving equal to or greater than 2000 

people). 

Using point process modeling, this research tested the influence of effective width on stair 

efficiency, measured here as increased stair flow. Stair flow was measured at the bottom of the 

stairs, located at the exit door from the stair. However, since there was no queuing witnessed at 

these stair doors in each stairway observed, the effective width used for analysis of stair 

efficiency was the stair’s effective width. The results of the Hawkes model showed that 

incremental increases in stair width did not show a statistically significant increase in mean stair 

flow across our building sample. 

The contradiction in these findings is likely the result of the fact that effective width is well 

correlated with two other independent variables: travel distance and total population in the stairs. 

Thus, while the point process modeling results of this research do not show a significant 

relationship between stair effective width and mean flow, this study is not able to definitely state 

that incremental increases in stair width is inconsequential to mean stair flow. 

Number of People: Currently, egress capacity (i.e., stair width) is calculated based upon the 

number of people from a floor required to use that stair (using IBC/NFPA codes). The focus on 

the number of occupants from a particular floor shows that the codes design for phased or partial 

evacuation only (i.e., where only a section of the building evacuates or relocates to another 

section in the building), rather than for full building evacuation. However, NIST’s study of the 

World Trade Center Investigation recommended a focus on full building evacuations; stating the 

“NIST recommends that tall buildings be designed to accommodate timely full building 

evacuation of occupants when required in building-specific or large-scale emergencies...” of 

which fire is one [9]. 

The results of this study show the total exit time for middle 90 % is linear to the number of floors 

provided the floors have the same travel distance to the next floor and the same population per 

floor. In all stairs, there were a small number of outliers who evacuated early and late in the 

evacuation. These were estimated to add an average of 22 % to the total evacuation time with a 

range as high as 61 %. 

Tread Depth and Riser Height: In terms of the usability requirements, one of the factors 

considered in the analysis of stair efficiency was the riser and tread step measurements. The IBC 

and the LSC state that stair riser heights shall be 178 mm (7 in) maximum and 102 mm (4 in) 

minimum, and rectangular tread depths shall be 279 mm (11 in) minimum29. 

The results of this study show that the steeper and longer stairs positively impacted the flow; i.e., 

the upper limits of stair riser and tread design in the NIST-observed sample provided higher flow 

rates on the stairs during evacuation. Within the NIST data, the riser heights of stairs ranged 

from 150 mm (5.9 in) to 198 mm (7.8 in) in height and the tread depths of stairs ranged from 

241 mm (9.5 in) to 305 mm (12 in) in length. The findings of this study suggest that stair 

 

29 The IBC also provides specifics on the ways in which to measure these values: the riser heights are measured 

vertically between the nosings of adjacent treads, and the tread depths are measured horizontally between the 

vertical planes of the foremost projection of adjacent treads and at a right angle to the tread’s nosings. 
126 

configurations on the upper range of the code required riser heights (approximately 180 mm to 

200 mm [7 to 7.8 inches]) and the minimum range of the code required tread depths 

(approximately 305 mm [12 in]) increase the stairway flow during a full building evacuation. 

For safe movement on stairs, to suit both ascent and descent, Templer suggests that risers be 

constructed between 160 mm and 183 mm (6.3 in and 7.2 in) and tread depth be at least 280 mm 

(11 in) wide [67]. According to his study, a 280 mm (11 in) minimum wide tread depth account 

for most foot and shoe sizes in this country. Additionally, risers from 117 mm to 183 mm (4.6 in 

to 7.2 in) had the fewest number of missteps associated with them. While values in the current 

study for riser height slightly exceed those suggested by Templer, the values generally similar to 

those of Templer. Additionally, since the current study observed evacuation on stairs with a 

minimal range of variance, it was impossible to discover benefits of riser heights or tread depths 

that fell outside of the current range. 

6.5 Additional Research Needs

This report provides just a beginning in understanding the additional human behavior-related 

factors that impact movement beyond classic hydraulic calculation-based variables. Additional 

research is needed to better understand these factors, including the following: 

 To fully understand overall exit times for building egress, a better understanding of 

movement and behavior of occupants prior to entering the stairs is required. This report 

presented a simple analysis of the time occupants take to arrive at the stair for egress. No 

data was collected in this study of occupant movements prior to entering the stairs. 

 Additional data on movement speeds, particularly in taller buildings and with various 

stair widths are needed to better understand the important variables that impact stair 

movement speeds, particularly the impact (or lack thereof) of effective stair width on 

movement speed. 

 Additional analysis of stair movement data to determine the best values and distributions 

for egress model inputs would facilitate modeling and help understand additional data 

needs through use of the data. Of particular interest is the impact of late evacuees on the 

overall evacuation time. 

 Additional analysis of stair movement data using the Hawke’s point process model would 

help clarify clustering in stair movement and its impact on occupant flow. 

 Further analysis is needed to fully understand whether fatigue occurs during building 

evacuations, and if so, the factors that impact fatigue, including distance traveled, age, 

physical ability, fitness level, etc. Additionally, if fatigue is present in certain conditions 

during building evacuations, it will be important to understand its impact on occupant 

movement speeds and flow. 

 Additional analysis of merging behavior is needed, including an understanding of the 

proportion of stair users versus occupants entering the stairs for a variety of building 

scenarios (i.e., building type, occupant type, scenario type, etc.). 

 Additional data collection and analysis of early and late evacuees is needed to better 

understand the impact of very slow evacuees on the overall evacuation time in buildings. 
127 

 Analysis of the evacuation timing of stairs versus elevators is needed, including the 

benefits of evacuation via elevators for different types and heights of buildings. 

 Data collection and analysis of behavioral data before and during stair evacuation as well 

as elevator evacuation is needed. This includes additional information on the movement 

of occupants with mobility impairments on stairs and other building egress components. 

 Since all of the analyses in this report are based on fire drill evacuations, additional 

research on the similarities or differences between these evacuations and real fire 

emergencies is needed to place the results in context. 
128 

Acknowledgments 

Continuing support for egress-related efforts at NIST is via internal funding. In addition, support 

is provided by other agencies of the U. S. Federal Government, most notably the Public 

Buildings Service of the U. S. General Services Administration (GSA). GSA has funded key data 

collection efforts reported as part of this report. The support by GSA is gratefully acknowledged 

along with special thanks to David Frable for his efforts and support. 

A number of buildings throughout the U. S. allowed NIST to observe evacuation drills in their 

buildings that form the core of the data in this report. 

Numerous NIST staff and interns provided support to collect and analyze the data for this report. 

The authors gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Hidemi Omori, Matthew Baker, Christopher 

Campbell, Alyson Blair, Jessica Kratchman, and Matthew Molek for their tireless efforts 

collecting and reviewing hundreds of hours of video data for the project. 

Anthony Hamins of NIST, Rita Fahy of the National Fire Protection Association and David 

Barber of Arup provided detailed reviews of drafts of this report. Their expertise, insight, and 

attention to detail dramatically improved the quality of the report. 
129 

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A. Building Details 

This appendix provides additional details on the geometry and data collection for the 14 buildings 

included in the study. Although included largely for reference purposes, it provides additional details of 

the buildings and stairwells evaluated to make the data widely useful. 

A.1 Building 1

Building 1 is a six-story office building with seven wings located on the East Coast of the United 

States. Each wing is shaped like a large rectangle. The lengths of the wings are all adjoining and 

parallel to each other, forming an even larger rectangle. The occupants of the building participate 

in full-building evacuations twice a year. On a typical day, the building houses as many as 9000 

people. 

The building has 14 stairs that exit into building lobbies that then exit to the outside on the 

ground floor. During the drill, NIST collected data from two of these stairwells. The stairwells 

were in separate, neighboring wings. The wings observed were mirror images of each other, with 

the same number of elevators, stairwells, and exterior exit doors. The stairwells in each wing 

were equally accessible from all rooms and floors. Both stairwells deposited occupants into a 

lobby through a set of double doors. For Stair A, the stairs were 1440 mm (56.5 in) wide; for 

Stair B, the stairs were 1540 m (60.5 in) wide. The individual steps measure 200 mm (8 in) rise 

and 280 mm (11 1/8 in) tread depth in both stairways. 

In both stairs, from floors 6 to 2, there are 16 steps between floors (interrupted by a mid-landing 

8 step between floors). In Stair A, this same spacing continued down to floor 1. In stair B, there 

are still 16 steps between floors 2 and 1, but with a mid-landing 10 steps down from floor 2 with 

an additional 6 steps to floor 1. 

A total of 9 camera locations were included in the two stairs observed. In Stair A, cameras were 

located at the main landings on floors 1, 2, 3, and 5. In Stair B, cameras were located at the main 

landing on floor 1, and on intermediate landings at floors 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 5.5. 

The unannounced full-building evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the summer 

of 2005 during normal business hours (before lunch). There were 272 participants in the 

evacuation in the two stairwells (129 in Stair A and 143 in Stair B). During the drill, two groups 

of three firefighters each travelled up Stair B to floor 5. 

Table A-1 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 1. 

A-1 
               

 

	 	

 

 

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Table A-1. Stair geometry for building 1, a six-story office building 

Stair A B 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 129 (126) 143 (108) 

Top Floor 6 

Exit Floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 5 

Tread (mm) 280 

Riser (mm) 200 

Floors 6 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1440 (1130) 1540 (1230) 

Flights (steps) 2 (16) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.2 Building 2

Building 2 is an 11-story educational building located in the Midwest of the United States. The 

building was equipped with classrooms and a library, as well as office spaces. A corridor 

encircled the building with offices on the outside of the corridors and classrooms or laboratories 

on the inside. The building elevators are located on one end of the building with an adjacent 

corner stairwell. A second stairwell was located diagonally opposite the first stairwell. 

Classrooms and an assembly space were located on the first three floors of the building. 

NIST observed both stairwells. However, all but six of the occupants used the stair nearest to the 

building elevators. This stair was designated at the South stair and is the only one analyzed for 

this report. The South stair dimensions varied throughout the stair shaft. The clear width of the 

stair was 1270 mm (50 in) from floors 11 to 3, and then from floors 3 to 1, the clear width 

increased to 1680 mm (66 in). The individual steps measure 240 mm (9.5 in) rise and (alternating 

between) 180 mm and 190 mm (7.25 in and 7.5 in, respectively) tread depth in the South stair. 

From floors 11 to 3, there are 2 flights between floors with a mid-landing. Each flight has 10 

steps. Then, between floors 3 and 2, there are two flights with a mid-landing with 10 steps down 

from the 3rd floor to the mid-landing and 11 down from the mid-landing. Between floors 2 and 1, 

1

 In most stairwells, there were occupants observed at one or more camera locations that were not seen exiting the 

stairwell at the level of exit discharge. In some cases, these were staff with specific building responsibilities, 

emergency personnel or evacuees who entered at the exit discharge level and did not use the stairs for egress. In 

others, they were evacuees who chose not to complete the evacuation at some point during their descent down the 

stairs. 

A-2 
               

 

		

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there are 2 flights, with a mid-landing 13 steps down from the 2nd floor and 8 additional steps 

down from the mid-landing to floor 1. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from seven camera locations. Cameras were located 

at the main landings on floors 1, 2, 4, and 6, and at the mid-landings on floors 2.5, 7.5, and 9.5. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the fall of 2007 during normal business 

hours (before lunch). There were 134 participants in the unannounced full building evacuation in 

one of the two stairwells (128 in the South stair). 

Table A-2 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 2. 

Table A-2. Stair geometry for building 2, an 11-story education building. 

Stair S 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 128 (117) 

Top Floor 11 

Exit Floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 10 

tread mm 240 

riser mm 190 

Configuration 1 

floors 11 to 3 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1270 (965) 

flights (steps) 2 (20) 

mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

floors 3 to 1 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1680 (1370) 

flights (steps) 2 (21) 

mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 2000 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.3 Building 3

Building 3 is a 13-story office building located on the East Coast of the United States with 11 

occupied floors above ground. The occupants of this building perform yearly full-building 

evacuation drills. On a typical day, the building population is approximately 375 people. 

During the drill, evacuation from two stairwells was observed (the East stair and the West stair). 

The stairwells were equally accessible from all floors in the building. In both stairs, occupants 

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exited from the stairs on the ground floor level (floor 1). The clear width of both stairs was 1120 

mm (44 in). The individual steps measure 165 mm (6.5 in) rise and 310 mm (12 1/4 in) tread 

depth in both stairways. 

From floors 13 to 1, there are two flights between floors with a mid-landing. Each flight has 9 

steps. 

The unannounced evacuation drill observed by NIST took place during the fall of 2005 during 

normal business hours (before lunch). There were 226 participants in the unannounced full 

building evacuation in the two stairwells (125 in the East Stair and 101 in the West Stair). 

Table A-3 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 3. 

Table A-3. Stair geometry for building 3, a 13-story office building. 

Stair E W 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 125 (116) 101 (84) 

Top Floor 13 

Exit Floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 12 

tread mm 310 

riser mm 170 

Configuration 1 

floors 13 to 1 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

flights (steps) 2 (18) 

mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.4 Building 4

Building 4 is a 24-story office building. The occupants in this building perform yearly staged 

evacuation drills; however, they participate in a full-building evacuation drill every five years. 

On a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 1500 people. 

The building has two stairs; Stairs A and B. Stair A exits onto the 2nd floor lobby where 

occupants must travel through the lobby to exit the building. Stair B exits directly to the outside 

on the ground floor (Floor 1). For both stairs, all flights of stairs are 1120 mm wide (44 in) and 

1020 mm (40 in) between handrails. Each flight has 10 steps with 180 mm (7 in) high risers and 

280 mm (11 in) deep treads. 

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In Stairs A and B, from floors 24 to 3, there are 2 flights between floors with a mid-landing. In 

Stair A, between floors 3 and 2 (the exit floor), there are 3 flights with two mid-landings. In Stair 

B in between floors 3 and 1 (the exit floor), there are 6 flights with five mid landings. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 23 different camera locations in the two stairs 

observed. In Stair A, 11 cameras were placed on every other floor beginning at the exit floor 

(Floor 2) and ending with Floor 22. Stair B, 12 cameras were placed every other floor beginning 

at the exit floor and then continuing on every other even floor from Floor 2 to Floor 22. NIST 

observed people movement in both Stairs A and B. 

The unannounced evacuation drill took place in the spring months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There were 621 participants in the two monitored stairs in the full 

building evacuation drill (257 in Stair A and 364 in Stair B). During the drill, three firefighters 

travelled up Stair A to the 13th floor approximately 1.5 min into the evacuation drill. Also before 

the drill, firefighters were staged in the stairwells on selected floor landings and began floor 

searches to ensure that all occupants evacuated as soon as the alarm sounded. 

Table A-4 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 4. 

Table A-4. Stair geometry for building 4, a 24-story office building. 

Stair A B 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 257 (246) 364 (321) 

Top Floor 22 

Exit Floor 2 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 20 21 

tread mm 280 

riser mm 180 

Configuration 1 

floors 24 to 3 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

flights (steps) 2 (20) 

mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

floors 3 to 2 3 to 1 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

flights (steps) 3 (30) 

mid-landings 2 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

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A.5 Building 5

Building 5 is a 10-story office building. The occupants in this building practice yearly fullbuilding evacuation drills. On a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 

1000 people. 

The building has two stairs; Stairs A and B, both of which exit directly out of the building on the 

first (or ground) floor. The two stairs are 1270 mm wide (1220 mm between handrails) and the 

individual steps measure 180 mm (7 in) rise and 280 mm (11 in) tread depth. 

In Stairs A and B, from floors 10 to 2, there are 2 flights between floors with a mid-landing. 

Each flight has 11 steps. From floor 2 to 1 in Stairs A and B, there are also 2 flights with a midlanding 13 steps down from floor 2 to the mid landing and an additional 14 steps from the midlanding to the exit floor). 

NIST collected data from 10 camera locations in the two stairs observed. In both stairs, cameras 

were located on main landings beginning with the exit floor (floor 1) and then continuing every 

other odd numbered floor from floor 3 to floor 9. NIST observed people movement in both Stairs 

A and B. 

The unannounced full building evacuation drill took place in the spring months of 2008 during 

normal business house (before lunch). There were 807 participants in drill (436 in Stair A and 

371 in Stair B). During the drill, six firefighters travelled up Stair B to the 7th floor 

approximately 8 to 11 minutes into the evacuation drill; i.e., when the drill was almost 

completed. Also during the drill, firefighters assigned to specific floors began floor searches to 

ensure that all occupants evacuated as soon as the alarm sounded. 

Table A-5 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 5. 

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Table A-5. Stair geometry for building 5, a 10-story office building. 

Stair A B 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 436 (384) 371 (350) 

Top Floor 10 

Exit Floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 9 

tread mm 280 

riser mm 180 

Configuration 1 

floors 10 to 2 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1270 (965) 

flights (steps) 2 (22) 

mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

floors 2 to 1 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1270 (965) 

flights (steps) 2 (27) 

mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 190 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.6 Building 6

Building 6 is a 62-story office building on the West Coast of the United States. On a typical day, 

the building houses a population of approximately 2800 people, 2/3 of which are below the 30th 

floor. The subdivision of office space varies from floor to floor. 

The building has four main stairs available for egress (numbered 5, 5-A, 6, and 6-A). Two of the 

stairs share a common shaft. There are transfer hallways in the buildings that route the egress 

stairs around mechanical spaces. Occupant movement was observed in four stairs; Stair 5 (which 

served floors up to floor 52), Stair 5A, and the two stairs that shared a common shaft, Stair 6 and 

Stair 6A (which served floors up to floor 52). For floors 52 and above, there are only two stairs 

(stairs 5A and 6). At the time of the drill, there were no occupants above floor 54. 

All stairs were 1035 mm (40.75 in) wide and the handrails did not protrude into the stair width. 

The steps were 200 mm (7 7/8 in) high and 250 mm (10 in) deep. Most floors had 22 steps to the 

next floor, but the exact configuration varied (the number of intermediary landings varied from 

one to three). Each of the four stairs had transfer hallways. Stair 5 had transfer hallways on floor 

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42, at a landing between 42 and 41, floor 22, at a landing between floor 22 and 21, and floor 4. 

Stair 5A had transfer hallways on floors 42, 22, and 4. Stair 6 had transfer hallways on floors 44, 

24, 22, and 4. Stair 6A had transfer hallways on floors 44, 24, 23, 20, and 4. 

Data was collected from a total of 42 camera locations in the four stairs. Cameras were placed 

several floors apart in the four different stairwells. Camera locations are shown below 

 Stair 5: Floors 1, 7 13,20,30, 36, 44,51 

 Stair 5A: Floors 1, 7, 12, 26, 34, 40 

 Stair 6: Floors: 1, 4, 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 24.5, 28, 34, 40, 46, 51, 54 

 Stair 6A: Floors 1, 4, 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 24.5, 28, 34, 40, 46, 51, 54 

The announced drill took place on a 2008 spring morning during regular working hours before 

lunch. There were a total of 607 participants over the approximately 20 min duration of the 

voluntary drill. 

Table A-6 shows details of the stair geometry for Building 6. 

Table A-6. Stair geometry for building 6, a 62-story office building. 

Stair 5 5A 6 6A 

Total population using stair (population 

using exita

) 113 (112) 156 (149) 121 (117) 217 (217) 

Top floor 52 54 

Exit floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 51 53 

Tread mm 254 

Riser mm 200 

Configuration 1 

Floors 52 to 44 54 to 53 54 to 45 54 to 44 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1040 (880) 1070 (910) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 2 (22) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

Floors 44 to 43 53 to 44 45 to 44 44 to 43 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 2 (34) 2 (22) 2 (14) 4 (22) 

Mid-landings 1 3 

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Table A-6. continued 

Stair 6_5 6_5A 6_6 6_6A 

Configuration 3 

Floors 43 to 41 44 to 42 44 to 43 43 to 42 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 3 (34) 3 (46) 4 (22) 5 (33) 

Mid-landings 2 2 3 4 

Configuration 4 

Floors 41 to 24 42 to 24 43 to 42 42 to 25 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 2 (22) 5 (33) 2 (22) 

Mid-landings 1 4 1 

Configuration 5 

Floors 24 to 21 24 to 22 42 to 25 25 to 24 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 3 (34) 3 (46) 2 (22) 2 (13) 

Mid-landings 2 2 1 1 

Configuration 6 

Floors 21 to 4 22 to 5 25 to 24 24 to 23 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 2 (22) 2 (13) 4 (22) 

Mid-landings 1 3 

Configuration 7 

Floors 4 to 3 5 to 4 24 to 23 23 to 22 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 5 (33) 4 (22) 4 (22) 3 (24) 

Mid-landings 4 3 2 

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Table A-6. continued 

Stair 6_5 6_5A 6_6 6_6A 

Configuration 8 

Floors 3 to 2 4 to 3 23 to 22 22 to 21 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 6 (36) 5 (39) 3 (24) 4 (22) 

Mid-landings 5 4 2 3 

Configuration 9 

Floors 2 to 1 3 to 2 22 to 21 21 to 20 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 1040 (880) 1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

Flights (steps) 5 (37) 6 (36) 4 (22) 2 (22) 

Mid-landings 4 5 3 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Exit door width (mm) 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Configuration 10 

Configuration 11 

Configuration 12 

2 to 1 21 to 6 20 to 19 

1030 (880) 1040 (880) 

5 (31) 2 (22) 2 (22) 

4 1 

910 

6 to 5 19 to 6 

1040 (880) 

2 (31) 2 (22) 

1 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

5 to 4 6 to 5 

1040 (880) 

5 (22) 2 (31) 

4 1 

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Table A-6. continued 

Stair 6_6 6_6A 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Configuration 13 

4 to 3 5 to 4 

1040 (880) 

3 (24) 5 (22) 

2 4 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Exit door width (mm) 

Configuration 14 

Configuration 15 

Configuration 16 

3 to 2 4 to 3 

1040 (880) 

4 (24) 2 (24) 

3 1 

2 to 1 3 to 2 

1040 (880) 

4 (23) 4 (24) 

3 

910 

Floors 2 to 1 

1040 (880) 

3 (23) 

2 

910 

Width mm (and between hand rails, 

mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Exit door width (mm) 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.7 Building 7

Building 7 is an 18-story office building housed in three wings adjoining a fourth corridor at one 

end of the wings. The building houses approximately 4000 people and has twelve stairs available 

for egress, numbered one through twelve. In Building 7's history, there have been small fires and 

other incidents that initiated the building alarm. Additionally, the building practices fire drills on 

a yearly basis. Within the year before the observed drill, the local fire department noted one 

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intentional alarm that initiated a building evacuation and one small fire that also initiated a 

building evacuation without injury to the occupants. 

Occupants were observed in four of the 12 stairs; specifically Stairs 1, 3, 7, and 12. These stairs 

were observed due to their placement in the building – in order to observe stairs from each of the 

wings in the building. This building is situated on a hill so that the lobby of the building is on the 

5th floor and the actual exit for Stair 1 is five floors below on the opposite (downhill) side of the 

building at ground level (floor 1). Stair 1 exited directly out of the building. Stairs 3, 7, and 12 

exited to the lobby area on the fifth floor, each through 910 mm (36 in) wide doors. All four 

stairs were 1120 mm (44 in) wide and 0.91 m (36 in) between handrails. The individual steps 

measured 190 mm (7 1/2 in) rise and 250 mm (10 in) tread depth. 

In Stair 1 from floors 18 to 4, there are two flights between floors with a mid-landing from floors 

18 to 4 and between floor 3 and 2 with 8 steps per flight. From floor 4 to 3 and from floor 2 to 1, 

there are 9 steps in each flight. In Stairs 3, 7, and 12, there are 2 flights of 8 steps each between 

floors interrupted by a mid-landing from floors 18 to 6, and then a total of 19 steps in between 

floors 6 and 5 (9 steps to the mid-landing and then 10 steps to the main landing/exit on floor 5). 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 30 different camera locations in the four stairs 

observed. In Stairs 3, 7, and 12, 7 cameras were placed every other floor beginning at the exit 

floor (Floor 5) and ending with Floor 17. In Stair 1, 9 cameras were placed every other floor 

beginning at the exit floor (Floor 1) and ending with Floor 17. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place in the spring months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). Within the four stairs observed, there were 1168 participants in 

the unannounced full building evacuation drill (286 in Stair 1, 312 in Stair 3, 373 in Stair 7, and 

197 in Stair 12). 

During the drill, a total of 17 firefighters travelled up Stair 12 from the 5th floor to the 12th floor; 

one group of seven firefighters were followed by another group of ten. Also, the local area 

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members stood at the entrance to Stair 2 and 

relayed to building occupants that Stair 2 was blocked and they needed to find another stair 

(likely causing a higher number of occupants to use the stairs near Stair 2 - Stairs 1 and 3 - than 

normally expected during an evacuation). Last, a person from the CERT team evacuated via Stair 

7 assisted by three members of the fire department using an evacuation chair (or stair descent 

device). 

Table A-7 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 7. 

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Table A-7. Stair geometry for building 7, an 18-story office building 

Stair 1 3, 7, 12 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 286 (264) 882 (734)b 

Top floor 17 

Exit floor 1 5 

Maximum number of stories traveled 16 12 

Tread mm 254 

Riser mm 190 

Configuration 1 

Floors 17 to 4 17 to 6 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

Flights (steps) 2 (16) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

Floors 4 to 3 6 to 5 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

Flights (steps) 2 (18) 2 (19) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

Configuration 3 

Floors 3 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

Flights (steps) 2 (16) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 4 

Floors 2 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (810) 

Flights (steps) 2 (18) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

b – total for all three stairwells. Individually, 312 (291), 373 (262), and 197 (181) for stairs 7_3, 7_7, 

and 7_12, respectively 

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A.8 Building 8

Building 8 is a 30-story office building on the East Coast of the United States (although the 

floors above ground are numbered up to 31; i.e., without a floor numbered as the 13th floor). On 

a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 2100 people. 

The building has two stairs (North and South, designated N and S here) that both exit on the 2nd 

floor onto the street level. The two stairs are 1380 mm (10 3/4 in) wide (1260 mm (42 1/4 in) 

between handrails) and the individual steps measure 180 mm rise and 270 mm tread depth. 

From floors 31 to 4, there are 2 flights between floors with a mid-landing. Between floors 3 and 

4, the stair configuration introduces a horizontal transfer corridor around the mechanical area. 

The corridors included three bends and the width of each section varied. From floors 3 to 2, there 

are 27 steps (interrupted by two mid landings with 9 steps between each landing). There are 9 

steps per flight on all flights of both stairs except the flight leading to the transfer hallway in both 

stairs where there are 7 steps from the 4th floor down to the transfer hallway. Finally, there is a 

horizontal travel distance from the North stair to the exit of the building. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 30 different camera locations in the two stairs 

observed. In both stairs, the cameras were placed on every other floor which meant the evennumbered floors from floors 30 to 14 (every other floor), and the odd-numbered floors from 11 

to 5. Cameras were also placed on even floors at the base of the stair (Floors 2 and 4) since Floor 

2 was the exit level. 

The evacuation drill observed by NIST took place in the fall months of 2008 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). The full-scale, simultaneous building evacuation was 

unannounced; meaning that the population was made aware of the evacuation drill only by the 

sound of the fire alarm. Additionally, the elevators were not available for the population to use 

during the drill. Only people with disabilities were able to use the elevators for evacuation, and 

only the freight elevator was available for their use. Overall, there were 1218 participants in this 

evacuation drill (685 in the North Stair and 533 in the South stair). 

Table A-8 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 8. 

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Table A-8. Stair geometry for building 8, a 31-story office building. 

Stair N S 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 685 (676) 533 (483) 

Top floor 30 

Exit floor 2 

Maximum number of stories traveled 28 

Tread mm 270 

Riser mm 180 

Configuration 1 

Floors 29 to 4 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1380 (1070) 

Flights (steps) 2 (18) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

Floors 4 to 3 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1380 (1070) 

Flights (steps) 2 (16) 4 (32) 

Mid-landings 1 3 

Configuration 3 

Floors 3 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1380 (1070) 

Flights (steps) 3 (27) 

Mid-landings 2 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.9 Building 9

Building 9 is a 13-story residential building that contains 175 living units. The building is 

designated for older adults with a typical population of approximately 200 residents. 

The building has two stairs, Stairs 1 and 2, both of which exit directly out of the building on 

ground floor. The two stairs are 1370 mm (54 in) wide, 1350 mm (53 in) between handrails, 

In Stairs 1 and 2, from floors 12 to 1, there are 2 flights between floors with a mid-landing. From 

floor 1 to the ground floor in Stairs 1 and 2, there are 3 flights between floors with two midlandings. Each flight has 9 steps measuring 150 mm (6 in) rise and 320 mm (12.6 in) tread depth. 

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On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 14 different camera locations in the two stairs. 

Cameras were placed on the ground (exit) floor and on floors 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 in both stairs. 

The announced, mandatory evacuation drill took place in the fall of 2009 in the morning (before 

noon). Building management made a decision to announce this evacuation drill so that building 

occupants would not be upset by the drill and instead, ready and prepared to take part. The 

evacuation scenario used for the drill was a gas leak near the building, which rendered the 

elevators inoperable for egress. 

The drill lasted for 75 min; however, video cameras were only able to capture 56 min of the 

evacuation. In the 13-story building 71 people evacuated in Stair 1 and 56 people in Stair 2. 

These numbers include all evacuees of the building and building staff that were either evacuating 

themselves or assisting residents; however these numbers do not include firefighters assisting 

evacuees. 

Throughout the drill, firefighters from various local fire stations arrived on scene and assisted 

building occupants down the stairs. Firefighters did interact briefly with evacuating occupants 

inside the stairs; however, when this would occur, the evacuating occupants were given priority 

(i.e., firefighters would step aside and allow evacuating occupants to pass by). Building 

occupants evacuated via the stairs on their own, with some assistance from firefighters or other 

occupants, or via evacuation chairs guided by firefighters2

. A total of 45 firefighters from 8 

different companies and additional support personnel were deployed for this evacuation drill and 

used this drill as a training opportunity on how to evacuate occupants with mobility impairments 

using one type of evacuation chair. Staff members assisted some occupants; however, firefighters 

assisted evacuees in evacuation chairs. 

Table A-9 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 9. 

2

 Evacuation chairs were used to assist individuals with mobility impairments down the stairs. The chairs were 

escorted by two to three firefighters at any one time. The type of evacuation chair used was one in which the 

individual sits upright on landings, and is tilted slightly back on stairs so that the chair may slide on the diagonal of 

the steps with ease. The specifics about chair manufacturer are not discussed in this paper. 

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Table A-9. Stair geometry for building 9, a 13-story residential building. 

Stair A B 

Total Population using stair (population using exita

) 71 (69) 56 (56) 

Top Floor 12 

Exit Floor 0 

Maximum number of stories traveled 12 

tread mm 320 

riser mm 150 

Configuration 1 

floors 12 to 1 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1370 (1070) 

flights (steps) 2 (18) 

mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

floors 1 to 0 

width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1370 (1070) 

flights (steps) 3 (27) 

mid-landings 2 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.10Building 10

Building 10 is a six-story residential building containing 133 living units. The building is 

designated as an assisted living facility for older adults. 

Occupants evacuated in one of the three stairwells that exit to the ground floor. Due to technical 

difficulties, only two out of the three could be monitored (Stairwell 2 and Stairwell 3). However, 

the majority of the residents evacuated through the stairwell 2 during the drill. The two stairwells 

have similar dimensions, being 1120 mm (44 in) wide, with an effective width of 950 mm (37 

1/2 in). The individual steps measure 170 mm (6 1/2 in) rise and 300 mm (12 in) tread depth. 

The first floors of Stairwell 2 and Stairwell 3 have 18 steps total; Stairwell 2 has 9 steps before 

and after a mid-landing, while Stairwell 3 has 10 and then 8 steps after a mid-landing. Floors 2 to 

6 of both stairwells have 18 steps between floors, interrupted by mid-landings after a flight of 9 

steps. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 12 different cameras locations, with cameras 

placed on every floor of Stairwell 2 and Stairwell 3. 

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The building evacuation drill began around 10 am in the Fall of 2010. Firefighters and staff 

members knocked on the doors of residents who volunteered to initiate the evacuation. Building 

management decided to announce this drill and not sound off the alarm so that older occupants 

who did not volunteer would remain calm. The exercise scenario was flooding in the basement 

from a water main break. In the scenario, water filled the elevator pits and approached the main 

mechanical room, thus rendering the elevators inoperable. If the flood persisted, the water would 

reach the electric panels and require all power to be shut down. Therefore, management chose to 

evacuate residents from the building by stairwells. The video cameras captured 50 min of the 

evacuation, which was cut short due to time constraints of the training exercise (i.e., not all 

residents evacuated the building). Throughout the drill, firefighters from different companies as 

well as support personnel arrived on scene to help building occupants travel down the stairs. 

Residents evacuated via the stairwells on their own, with a cane, with assistance from firefighters 

or other occupants, or by stair descent devices. The firefighters used this drill as a training 

opportunity for evacuating mobility-impaired individuals on stair descent devices. 

In the six-story building, 47 residents were evacuated, with 45 in Stairwell 2 and 2 in Stairwell 3. 

The reason for the difference in stair usage was because the firefighters designated Stairwell 2 as 

their main evacuation stairwell, using it almost exclusively for evacuation, while the other two 

stairwells were used to carry vacant evacuation chairs back up to waiting residents. In Stairwell 

2, two occupants on stair chairs were transferred from Stairwell 2 to Stairwell 3 because of slight 

congestion. These numbers do not include firefighters assisting evacuees. 

Table A-10 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 10. 

Table A-10. Stair geometry for building 10, a six-story residential assisted-living facility. 

Stair 2 3 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 45 (45) 2 (---) 

Top floor 6 

Exit floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 5 

Tread mm 305 

Riser mm 165 

Configuration 1 

Floors 6 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (950) 

Flights (steps) 2 (18) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

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A.11Building 11

Building 11 is a 22-story office (courthouse) building on the West Coast of the United States. On 

a typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 600 people. 

This building has 22 stories, 19 of which are occupied, and has four stairways for evacuation. 

Two exit stairs, Stairs 1 and 2 are public stairs that provide access from floor 18 (Stair 2) or 19 

(Stair 3) to the exit (either the lobby or the basement floor exit). The other two exit stairs, Stairs 

3 and 4, are secured stairs. Stair 3 provides access to all occupied floors. Stair 4 services floors 7 

to 1. During the evacuation, NIST set up video cameras in two of the four exit stairs, specifically 

Stairs 2 and 3, to capture people movement on exit stairways and through stair/exit doors. Stair 2 

is 1270 mm (50 in) wide (1170 m [46 in] between handrails) and Stair 3 is 1180 mm (46 1/2 in) 

wide (1070 mm [42 in] between handrails). In Stair 2, the individual steps measure 180 mm (7 

in) rise and 280 mm (11 in) tread depth, and in Stair 3, the individual steps measure 160 mm (6 

1/2 in) rise and 300 mm (12 in) tread depth. 

There were differences in levels of exit discharge – occupants should exit Stair 2 at the lobby 

level (floor 2), whereas occupants should exit Stair 3 at the ground level (floor 1). 

In Stair 2, from floors 18 to 7, there are 18 steps between floors interrupted by a mid-landing 

after 9 steps. From floors 7 to 2, in Stair 2, there are 24 steps between floors interrupted by a 

mid-landing after 12 steps. In Stair 3, from floors 19 to 7, there are 18 steps between floors 

interrupted by a mid-landing after 9 steps. From floors 7 to 2, in Stair 3, there are 24 steps 

between floors interrupted by a mid-landing after 12 steps. Finally, from floor 2 to 1, there are 25 

steps total (5 steps from floor 2 to the first mid landing, 12 steps to another mid landing, and then 

8 steps to the exit location on floor 1). 

Data was collected from 19 different camera locations in the two stairs observed. In Stair 2, 

cameras were placed on every even floor started with floor 18 to floor 2 (for a total of 9 

cameras), and in Stair 3, cameras were placed on every odd floor beginning at floor 19 and 

ending at floor 1 (for a total of 10 cameras). 

The evacuation drill took place in the fall months of 2010 during normal business house (before 

lunch). There were 224 participants in the unannounced full building evacuation drill (135 in 

Stair 2 and 89 in Stair 3). During the drill, an individual from the 11th floor was evacuated via a 

stair descent device in Stair 3. 

Table A-11 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 11. 

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Table A-11. Stair geometry for building 11, a 22-story office building. 

Stair 2 3 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 135 (77) 89 (83) 

Top floor 18 19 

Exit floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 17 18 

Tread mm 280 

Riser mm 180 

Configuration 1 

Floors 18 to 7 19 to 7 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1270 (1170) 1180 (1070) 

Flights (steps) 4 (36) 

Mid-landings 3 

Configuration 2 

Floors 7 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1270 (1170) 1180 (1070) 

Flights (steps) 2 (24) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

Configuration 3 

Floors 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings

Exit door width (mm) 

2 to 1 

 1180 (1070) 

 3 (25) 

2 

910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

A.12Building 12

Building 12 is a 6-story office building located in the East Coast of the United States. 

The building has two sinistral stairs (individuals descend in a clockwise direction), Stair A and 

Stair B. Both stairs serve all six floors of the building and exit at the first floor. Both stairs are 

1120 mm (44 in wide) and 1040 mm (41 in) between handrails. Individual steps measure 

180 mm (7 in) rise and 290 mm (11 1/2 in) tread depth. 

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In Stairs A and B, from floors 6 to 2, there are two flights between floors with a mid-landing. 

Each flight has 10 steps. In Stair A, between floor 2 and 1 (the exit floor), there are 3 flights with 

two mid-landings. From floor 2, there are 10 and 13 steps to the mid-landings and finally 12 

steps down to floor 1. In Stair B, between floor 2 and 1 (the exit floor), there are 3 flights with 

two mid-landings. From floor 2, there are 6 and 10 steps to the mid-landings and finally 16 steps 

down to floor 1. 

On the day of the drill, cameras were placed at every floor of both stairwells to capture a view of 

each floor’s main landings. The camera also recorded the time in which people moved through 

the space (i.e. when people enter and exit landings). NIST observed people movement in both 

stairs. 

The unannounced full-building evacuation drill took place in the spring of 2011 during normal 

business hours (before lunch). There were 76 participants in the two monitored stairs during the 

evacuation (64 in Stair A and 12 in Stair B). 

Table A-11 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 12. 

Table A-12. Stair geometry for building 12, a six-story office building. 

Stair A B 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 64 (61) 12 (12) 

Top floor 6 

Exit floor 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 5 

Tread mm 290 

Riser mm 180 

Configuration 1 

Floors 6 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (1040) 

Flights (steps) 2 (20) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

Floors 2 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (1040) 

Flights (steps) 3 (35) 3 (32) 

Mid-landings 2 2 

Exit door width (mm) 910 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

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A.13Building 13

Building 13 is a 15-story residential high-rise building that contains 203 living units as well as a 

commercial space on the T1 level of the building. The building actually has floors above ground 

from 1 to 16 because it does not contain a 13th floor. 

The building has two stairs, Stairs 1 and 2. Stair 1 ends at the T1 level (one level underground in 

reference to the building’s front entrance) and Stair 2 ends at the T2 level (two levels 

underground in reference to the building’s front entrance). The building was built on a hill that 

allowed for three separate exits levels. The two stairs are 1120 mm (44 in) wide, 980 mm 

(38 5/8 in) between handrails, and the individual steps measure 170 mm (6 1/2 in) rise and 

300 mm (12 in) tread depth. 

In Stairs 1 and 2, from floors 16 to 15, there are 9 steps to the mid landing, and then another 8 

steps to floor 15. Between floors 15 and 1, there are 16 steps between floors (interrupted by a 

mid-landing 8 steps between floors). From floor 1 to the T1 level, there are 9 steps to the mid 

landing, and then another 12 steps to the T1 floor (where occupants would exit Stair 1. In Stair 2, 

from the T1 level to the T2 level, there are 10 steps to the mid landing, and then another 6 steps 

to the T2 level, where occupants in Stair 2 would exit. 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 18 different camera locations in the two stairs. 

In Stair 2, cameras were located at level T1 (one floor underground; the exit level), every other 

floor from floor 1 up to floor 9, and floors 10, 12, and 15. In Stair 2, cameras were located on 

floor T2 (two level underground, the exit level), floor 1, and every other floor from floor 2 to 15. 

The announced, voluntary evacuation drill took place in the spring of 2011 in the morning 

(before noon). Building management made a decision to announce this evacuation drill so that 

building occupants would not be upset by the drill and instead, ready and prepared to take part. 

The evacuation scenario used for the drill was a fire scenario in the building which would require 

a full building evacuation. When the fire alarm sounded, most building occupants evacuated via 

the stairs on their own. The fire department was also present for the evacuation drill, and 

evacuated one occupant using an evacuation chair. 

In the 16-story building, 36 people evacuated in Stair 1 and 39 people in Stair 2 without 

assistance. Additionally firefighters assisted one additional occupant in an evacuation chair in 

Stair 1; these numbers do not include firefighters assisting evacuees. 

Table A-13 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 13. 

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Table A-13. Stair geometry for building 13, a 15-story residential building. 

Stair 1 2 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 36+1b

 (35+1) 39 (39) 

Top floor 15 

Exit floor T1 T2 

Maximum number of stories traveled 15 16 

Tread mm 300 

Riser mm 170 

Configuration 1 

Floors 15 to 1 15 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (980) 

Flights (steps) 2 (16) 

Mid-landings 1 

Configuration 2 

Floors 1 to T1 1 to T1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1120 (980) 

Flights (steps) 2 (21) 

Mid-landings 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

Configuration 3 

Floors T1 to T2 

1120 (980) 

2 (16) 

1 

910 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 

Flights (steps) 

Mid-landings 

Exit door width (mm) 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

b – firefighters assisted one additional occupant in an evacuation chair in Stair 1 

A.14Building 14

Building 14 is a 21-story office (courthouse) building in the Midwest of the United States. On a 

typical day, the building houses a population of approximately 600 people. 

This building has 21 stories above ground and has three main stairways for evacuation. Two exit 

stairs, Stairs 1 and 2 are public stairs that provide access from floor 21 to the exit (either the 

lobby or the lower level 3 floor exits since Stair 2 exits on the rear of the building, three floors 

below the grade in the front of the building). The third exit stair, Stair 3, is secured. Stair 3 

provides access to all floors. Additional stairs in the building include a number of convenience 

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stairs that connect adjacent floors but do not travel the full height of the building and stairs used 

for egress of below grade levels (stairwells 4 and 5). NIST collected data from Stairs 1 and 2. 

Stair 1 is 1060 mm (41 3/4 in) wide and 920 mm (36.3 in) between handrails. Stair 2 is 1040 mm 

(40 3⁄4 in) wide and 900 mm (35 3/8 in) between handrails. Individual stairs measure 170 mm (6 

7/8 in) rise and 300 mm (11.9 in) tread depth. There were differences among the exit stairs’ 

levels of exit discharge – occupants exit Stair 1 at ground level in the rear of the building (floor 

T3) and exit Stair 2 at the lobby level (floor 1) in the front of the building. 

Both stairs have a unique triangular configuration for the above-ground floors. Table A-14 and 

Appendix A show details for the stair geometry. From floors 21 to 7, there are 6 flights of stairs 

with five mid-landings, different numbers of steps per flight, and additional horizontal travel 

distances to maintain the triangular shape of the stairs. From Floors 7 down to 2, there are 3 

flights with two mid-landings. For Stair 1 from floor 2 down to the exit on T3, there are 6, 3, 4, 

and 5 flights respectively (with 5, 2, 3, and 4 mid-landings). 

On the day of the drill, NIST collected data from 23 different camera locations in the two 

stairwells. In Stair 1, 12 cameras were placed on every other floor from T3 up to 20. In Stair 2, 

cameras were placed on floor 1 (the exit floor) and every other floor from floor 2 up to 20. 

The unannounced evacuation drill took place in the fall of 2011 during normal business hours 

(before lunch). There were 305 participants in the two monitored stairs (175 in Stair 1 and 130 in 

Stair 2). 

Table A-13 shows details for the stair geometry for Building 14. 

Table A-14. Stair geometry for building 14, a 21-story office building. 

Stair 1 2 

Total population using stair (population using exita

) 175 (157) 130 (100) 

Top floor 21 21 

Exit floor L3 1 

Maximum number of stories traveled 24 20 

Tread mm 300 

Riser mm 170 

Configuration 1 

Floors 21 to 20 21 to 20 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 1040 (900) 

Flights (steps) 3 (22) 3 (22) 

Mid-landings 2 2 

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Table A-14, continued 

Stair 14_1 14_2 

Configuration 2 

Floors 20 to 8 20 to 8 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 1040 (900) 

Flights (steps) 6 (32) 6 (32) 

Mid-landings 5 5 

Configuration 3 

Floors 8 to 7 8 to 7 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 1040 (900) 

Flights (steps) 6 (40) 6 (40) 

Mid-landings 5 5 

Configuration 4 

Floors 7 to 6 7 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 1040 (900) 

Flights (steps) 3 (23) 3 (23) 

Mid-landings 2 2 

Configuration 5 

Floors 6 to 5 2 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 1040 (900) 

Flights (steps) 3 (22) 2 (32) 

Mid-landings 2 1 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

Configuration 6 

Floors 5 to 3 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 3 (23) 

Mid-landings 2 

Configuration 7 

Floors 3 to 2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 3 (22) 

Mid-landings 2 

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Table A-14, continued 

Stair 14_1 14_2 

Configuration 8 

Floors 2 to 1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 6 (32) 

Mid-landings 5 

Configuration 9 

Floors 1 to T1 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 3 (32) 

Mid-landings 2 

Configuration 10 

Floors T1 to T2 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 4 (32) 

Mid-landings 3 

Configuration 11 

Floors T2 to T3 

Width mm (and between hand rails, mm) 1060 (920) 

Flights (steps) 5 (31) 

Mid-landings 4 

Exit door width (mm) 910 

a – number of evacuees that were observed at the camera location at the exit from the stairwell1 

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B. Averaging Movement Speeds 

This appendix details the use of the harmonic mean as well as its calculation and its associated 

uncertainties. Overall movement speed for each occupant, discussed in section 4.14, was 

determined from the total travel distance (from where he/she entered the stairwell to the exit at 

the bottom of the stairwell) divided by the difference between entry and exit times. 

To begin, consider an occupant that travels three consecutive 10 m sections in 10 s, 15 s, and 

20 s (thus with local speeds of 1.00 m/s, 0.67 m/s, and 0.5 m/s, respectively). The arithmetic 

mean of the three local speeds is 0.72 m/s. However, the overall mean speed considering the total 

distance and time travelled is 30 m / 45 s or 0.67 m/s, which is the harmonic mean of the local 

speeds. This, correct, mean speed uses the harmonic mean. 

To see this in detail, we begin with the definition of the weighted harmonic mean, 



n 

wi 

i1 H 



n (1) 

wi 

xi i1 

where H is the harmonic mean, and wi is the weight of the value xi in the average. Suppose 

person A travels along a path, P, broken into n segments of lengths d1, d2, ... , dn traveling the 

segments at speeds v1, v2, ..., vn. The overall average speed, va, of A along the path is simply the 

total path length divided by the total time to traverse the path, so the overall average speed of 

person A is 

a v 1 2 

1 2 

n 

n 

dd d 

tt t 

      

 (2) 

where ti is the time taken to traverse the i

th segment. By definition, i t  i d 

i v , which can be 

substituted into Eq (2) so that the overall average speed of A is n 

i d

a v  1 

1 

i 

n 

i 

i 

d 





 i v 

(3) 

which is the weighted harmonic mean of vi, with weights d . Therefore the harmonic mean of an i 

occupant’s local speeds is equal to that occupant’s overall average speed. Since the arithmetic 

mean of positive values is always greater than the harmonic mean the arithmetic mean of the 

local speeds would be larger than the overall average speed of the occupant. 

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Now consider the average of n occupants traveling through a section with length d with travel 

d times t

i . If vpop is the average speed for the population than v should equal to the average 

pop 

time the occupants spend in the section as shown here n d 1  ti v n 

nd (4)  v 

pop i1 

n pop 

ti 

i1 

which has the same form as Eq (2) and is the harmonic mean of the individual speeds where all 

w d i  . 

The same idea can be used to define the overall average speed for a population on a stair. In this 

case we will define the overall average speed for the population as the value vpop such that the 

average distanced traveled by the occupants divide by vpop will equal the average time the 

occupants are in the stair. Mathematically that looks like 

1 d 1 

n 

i

v  

n 

ti

n i1 pop n i1 



n 

di (5) 

i1 v pop  n 

ti 

i1 

where di and ti are the distance and the travel time for the i

th occupant respectively and (5) is 

again the weighted harmonic mean of the average speeds of the occupants. 

From vpop for a section, it is clear the weightings are the distance a speed is averaged over. To 

calculate the overall average speed from the local average speeds of each section we just use the 

same calculation. Assume the stair has m sections, than 

w nd  (6) j j j 

where wj , nj , and dj are the weighting for, the number of occupants passing through, and the 

distance of the j

th section. Substituting into (1) gives 

m 

n dj j 

j1

v  (7) pop m n d  j j 

j1 vpop, j 

where vpop is the average speed of the population in the stair and vpop,j is the harmonic mean of 

the speeds in the j

th section. 

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We can extend this definition of the average speed of the population in a stair to the average 

speed of the population for a building or for the total population in all the evacuations. 

B.1 Uncertainty Analysis of Averages

We can rewrite (2) as 

n d

i1 i 1 1

v a    (8)   i n di n 1 d H i1    v i1 n i v  i  d

i1 i 

where H is the weighted mean of 

 1 

, i  1, ,n . v  i 

Therefore, va  f H  , where f u   1 

u 

and f u  1 

u

2 . Here the propagation of errors 

formula may be applied. Using a first-order Taylor series expansion about H  E H  , the 

mean of H, 

2 Var  f   H   f  

2 

   H H 

2 (9) 

 H 

 H 

4 

where  H

2 Var H   , the variance of H. So, 

 H 

2 

  a  4 Var v (10)

 H 

Assuming v1, v2, ..., vn are independent and identically distributed, 

 n    1 di  1 

 H  EH    E     E n    v  v  i1  i d   1  i1 i  (11) 

2   1 d 2 

i  H Var H   Var   2

v1 i 1 n     d i1 i 

Since vi are identically distributed, E  1   E  1    E 

 1  and 

 v1  

 v2    vn 

 1   1    1  Var  Var   Var so that in the above formula v1 is used to indicate the  v   v   v   1   2   n 

average value and variance of the inverse of the speed for an individual as opposed to the series 

or sum or some other combination of the population. 

Using the sample moments, both  and 2 

H H may be estimated 

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n 

ˆH  1  1 

n v i1 i 

2 n 2 (12) 

2 1  1  di ˆH    ˆH   2

n 1 n  vi  i1 i1 

di

B.2 Sample Variation from the Harmonic Mean

The sample variation measures the average variation from the arithmetic mean. Since we are 

using the harmonic mean as the 1st order statistic for speed it is natural to consider the deviation 

of individual average speeds from the harmonic average speed, va. This gives almost the normal 

sample variation formula 

2 1



n 

 

2

 vv (13) v i a i n1 i1 

where v

2 is the variation of individual speeds using the harmonic mean speed rather than the i

more typical arithmetic mean for consistency with the average speed calculation. 

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C. Local Travel Speeds 

This appendix includes box plots of the local speed in the 30 stairs. Included in the study. In 

addition to the median, interquartile range, and 95 % confidence intervals, the graphs also 

include all the outliers (those values outside the 95 % confidence intervals) for each camera 

location. It is intended to show the variability of the local movement speeds. 

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Floor Floor 

5 

3 

2 

P1 

Stair 1 A

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 

Speed (m/s) 

5.5 

3.5 

2.5 

1.5 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 1 B
 

Figure C‐1. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 1
 

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Floor 

1 

2.5 

3 

4 

6 

7.5 

9.5 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 2 S
 

Figure C‐2. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 2
 

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Floor 

1 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

0.0	 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 3 E

Floor 

1 

4 

6 

8 

10 

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 3 W
 

Figure C‐3. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 3
 

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Floor 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

16 

18 

20 

22 

0.0 	 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 4 A

Floor 

P1 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

16 

18 

20 

22 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 4 B
 

Figure C‐4. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 4
 

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Floor 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 5 A

Floor 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 5 B

Figure C‐5. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 5

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Floor 

1 

7 

13 

20 

30 

36 

44 

51 

0.2	 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 6‐5

Floor 

1 

7 

12 

26 

34 

40 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 6‐5A
 

Figure C‐6. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 6
 

C-7 

1.4 

1.2 
               

   

   

                         

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Floor 

1 

4 

12-11 

18-17 

22 

23 

24 

24A 

28-27 

34-33 

40-39 

46-45 

52-51 

54 

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 6‐6

Floor 

1 

4 

12-11 

18-17 

22 

23 

24 

24A 

28-27 

34-33 

40-39 

46-45 

52-51 

54 

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 6‐6A

Figure C‐6. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 6, continued

C-8 

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Floor 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

11 

13 

15 

17 

0.0	 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 7‐1
 

Floor 

5 

7 

9 

11 

13 

15 

17 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 7‐3
 

Figure C‐7. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 7
 

C-9 

1.2 
               

   

   

                         

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Floor 

5 

7 

11 

13 

15 

0.0	 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 7‐7

Floor 

5 

7 

11 

13 

15 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 7‐12

Figure C‐7. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 7, continued

C-10 

1.2 

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Floor Floor 

30 

28 

26 

24 

22 

20 

18 

16 

14 

11 

9 

7 

5 

4 

2 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 8 N

28 

26 

24 

22 

20 

18 

16 

14 

11 

9 

7 

5 

4 

2 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 8 S

Figure C‐8. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 8

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Floor 

G 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

11 

0.0	 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 9 A

Floor 

G 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

11 

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 9 B
 

Figure C‐9. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 9
 

C-12 

1.2 

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Floor 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 10‐2
 

Figure C‐10. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 10
 

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Floor 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

16 

0.2	 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 11‐2
 

Floor 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

11 

13 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 11‐3
 

Figure C‐11. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 11
 

C-14 

1.4 
               

     

     

                       

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Floor 

1 

2 

3 

4 

0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 12 A

Floor 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 12 B
 

Figure C‐12. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 12
 

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Floor 

T1 

1 

3 

5 

7 

9 

10 

0.0	 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 13‐1
 

Floor 

T2 

1 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 13‐2
 

Figure C‐13. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 13
 

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Floor 

L3 

L1 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

16 

18 

0.4	 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 14‐1
 

Floor 

1 

2 

4 

6 

8 

10 

12 

14 

16 

18 

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 

Speed (m/s) 

Stair 14‐2
 

Figure C‐14. Local Movement Speeds for All Camera Locations in Building 14
 

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1.2 

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D. Parameter Estimation using Linear Least Squares and Bayesian 

Inference 

In Sections 4.5 and 4.6, we explore correlations and functional relationships between engineering 

variables of interest and occupant flow, speed, pre-observation time, and exit time using 

parameter estimation. Two approaches will be used. One approach to conduct parameter 

estimation is to use optimization methods, such as linear least squares, to determine a single 

solution for an unknown parameter that best fits the data. This is known as a frequentist approach 

to parameter estimation. In the frequentist approach, the data are considered to be random 

observations, and the unknown parameters are considered to be fixed but unknown constants. 

This approach has some limitations when working with a limited data set that has an inherent 

amount of noise. Additionally, the resulting confidence intervals do not quantify the amount of 

credibility of the unknown parameters. 

The second approach used considers the observations as coming from a distribution depending 

on an unknown parameter . In addition to the observations, it is assumed that there is a 

distribution P() that describes the location of 0. P() is called the prior distribution about 

before observations are taken. This approach is known as Bayesian inference, which uses Bayes’ 

theorem [1] to combine our knowledge of prior information and observed data to form a 

resulting posterior distribution of an unknown parameter. The results of a Bayesian inference 

procedure is a probability distribution that contains uncertainty information of every plausible 

parameter value after observing the data [1]. Additionally, the resulting credible intervals are a 

range of parameter values that contain the true parameter value, which is directly interpretable 

and more applicable than confidence intervals. 

D.1 Bayesian Inference

Consider the outcomes of two events, Outcome A and Outcome B. The probability of these 

outcomes is represented as ܲሺܣሻ and ܲሺܤሻ. The conditional probability of Outcome A given

Outcome B is represented as ܲሺܣ ܤሻ| . Central to Bayesian inference is Bayes’ theorem, which 

can be used to compute ܲሺܣ ܤሻ| is given by

 |   PB A (1) (|) A  P   P AB 

P B 

where P(A|B) is the posterior quantity, P(B|A) is the likelihood, and P(B) is the normalizing 

constant. In practical applications, the normalizing constant P(B) is difficult to compute, and thus 

the posterior quantity is often described in terms of a proportionality as 

P A B P B A  |   ( | )P A  (2) 

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For the applications considered in this study, Outcome A corresponds to unknown model 

parameters ߠ௜, and Outcome B corresponds to observed data D and a model M. Thus, we can 

rewrite Eq. (2) as 

P(|  D M , )P D ( | ,  M)P( |  M) (3) i i i 

which states that the probability of the unknown parameters producing observed data using the 

|ܦ, ܯሻ (posterior) is proportional to the probability of obtaining the observed data ߠ ௜model ܲሺ

, ܯሻ (likelihood) multiplied by the probability ߠ ௜using the model and unknown parameters ܲሺܦ|

|ܯሻ (prior). A summary of the of the occurrence of the unknown parameters given a model ܲሺߠ௜

Bayesian inference procedure is shown in Figure D-1. More details on the Bayesian inference 

process are described in reference [2]. 

Figure D-1. Overview of Bayesian inference process. 

The computational framework used in this study included the following tools for data processing, 

analysis, and visualization: Python 2.7.5, NumPy 1.7.1, SciPy 0.12.0, matplotlib 1.3.0, and 

PyMC 2.2. Python is a high-level, flexible, and powerful programming language that is wellsuited to scientific and engineering applications [3]. NumPy is a package for scientific 

computing in Python and includes efficient methods for working with arrays, tools for 

integrating Python, C, C++, and Fortran code, and linear algebra functionality [4]. SciPy is a 

counterpart to NumPy and includes routines for efficient numerical integration and optimization 

as well as statistical analysis tools [5]. The matplotlib package is a 2D plotting library for Python 

[6]. 

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The PyMC module is used for Bayesian inference and is summarized as [7] 

PyMC is a Python module that implements Bayesian statistical models and fitting 

algorithms, including Markov chain Monte Carlo. Its flexibility and extensibility make it 

applicable to a large suite of problems. Along with core sampling functionality, PyMC 

includes methods for summarizing output, plotting, goodness-of- fit and convergence 

diagnostics. 

The Python module PyMC computes and reports the posterior mean, median, quartiles, and 

standard deviation for each unknown parameters ߠ௜. Additionally, all parameter values in the 

posterior distribution are saved in PyMC, and the NumPy and SciPy packages in Python can then 

be used to compute other statistical quantities of interest. 

One of the useful tools that are available making use of the LLS approach is p-value. One may 

think of a p-value as the probability (likelihood) that the magnitude of a test statistic associated 

with a hypothesis test under consideration occurred merely by chance. A small p-value indicates 

that the data provide evidence that the null hypothesis is false. Because of the limited number of 

tests and the inherent variability in people we will be using a standard cut off for the p-value of 

0.1. 

D.2 Example Application

In this section, the linear least squares and Bayesian methods for parameter estimation are 

applied, in detail, to one of the functional relationships described in section 4.5. At the end of 

the section, the results for the other 6 relationships are presented without the level of detail 

included for the first example. For Model 1, we consider the relationship between the average 

flow (of the middle 90 % of non-residential stairs) and the total population. The data are shown 

in Figure D-2 for all non-residential stairs (one data point per stair). 

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Figure D-2. Flow vs. total population 

It is assumed that the average flow is correlated to the total population by a power law 

P1 relationship, F  . ave 0 total 

The Bayesian inference procedure was set up using PyMC with 1 000 000 iterations. The first 

800 000 iterations were discarded to allow for the parameter search process to converge to a 

region of high probability for the unknown parameters. This setting is known as the burn-in 

period. Of the final 200 000 iterations, only every 200th sample was retained, which helps to 

reduce repeated parameter samples that can skew the resulting posterior distribution. This setting 

is known as the thinning parameter. For this case and all of the remaining, the same settings were 

used: 1 000 000 total iterations, a burn-in period of 800 000, and a thinning parameter of 200. 

The prior distributions of the unknown parameters were specified as uniform distributions as 

follows: [-10, 10] for ߠ଴, and [-5, 5] for ߠଵ. Bayesian inference, making use of the posterior 

distributions of the unknown parameters ߠ ଴and ߠଵ and the data shown in Figure D-, was 

performed. The resulting posterior distributions, parameter traces, and autocorrelation plots are 

shown in Figure 3. 

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Figure D-3. Parameter traces, autocorrelation plots, and posterior distributions of unknown parameters 

In Figure D-3, the top left plot (parameter trace) shows the value of ߠ ଴throughout the PyMC 

simulation, which appears to explore a region of high probability centered on a value of 0.1. The 

bottom left plot shows the autocorrelation of the parameter trace, which summarizes repeated 

values (i.e., lags) during the parameter search process. The results of this autocorrelation plot 

indicate good results of the parameter search process, with minimal amounts of lag. Finally, the 

plot on the right side shows a histogram of the values in the posterior distribution. 

In this case, the posterior median values for ߠ ଴and ߠଵ are 0.07 and 0.34, respectively. The 95 % 

credible intervals for ߠ ଴and ߠଵ are [0.02, 0.26] and [0.12, 0.59], respectively. The 95 % credible 

interval is the range of values that has a 95 % probability of containing the true values of ߠ ଴and

 .ଵߠ

The values for the parameters ߠ ଴and ߠଵ from the posterior distributions were used in the model, 

and the resulting model iterations are shown in Figure D-4. In this figure, the gray lines represent 

individual model predictions over all values in the posterior distribution, and the solid green line 

represents the model prediction using the posterior mean value of ߠ ଴and ߠଵ. 

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Figure D-4. Results of Model 1 evaluated at the posterior mean value (solid green line) and for all values from the 

posterior distribution of  and (gray lines) 0 1

The gray region formed by the individual realizations represents a qualitative uncertainty in the 

model predictions given our uncertainty in the unknown parameters. With additional observed 

data points or models that better describe the observed data, a reduction in the propagated model 

uncertainty would be expected. 

Finally, the deviance information criterion (DIC) can be used to quantify relative performance 

between different models, which can be used to perform model selection. The DIC is calculated 

as 

஽݌ ൌ ܥܫܦ ഥܦ ൅

where ݌ ஽is the effective number of parameters, and ܦഥ is the deviance, or a measure of how well 

the model fits the data (similar to the R2 value in frequentist inference methods like LLS). In a 

relative comparison of models, the model with the lowest DIC value is preferred. In this case, the 

DIC value was -30.0. 

Total population is correlated with average flow (of the middle 90% of non-residential stairs) via 

linear least squares. The correlations for  and  are 0.037 and 0.46. The R2

0 1 is 0.40. Figure

D-5 shows the correlation of total population to average flow for both methods. 

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1.0 

Average Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) 0.8 

0.6 

0.4 

0.2 

0.0 

Bayes Power Law 0.079 x 0. 33, R2 = 0.40 

LLS Power Law 0.037 x0. 46, R2 = 0.40 

Occupants vs Ave Flow 

0 200 400 600 800 

Number of Occupants (people) 

Figure D-5. Average flow vs. number of occupants and the Bayesian and Linear Least Squares fits 

Note that for both  and  the values generated by LLS fall within 95% confidence intervals 0 1

found using Bayesian inference. Both parameters are found to be significant in LLS. A graphical 

summary of the analysis for all seven functional relationships included in Section 4.5 is shown in 

Figure D-6. 

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1.0 

1 Model 1, F  P , Bayesian ave 0 total 

Inference with all values from posterior 

distribution 

D1 Model 2, F  , Bayesian ave 0 exit 

Inference with all values from posterior 

distribution 

Ave Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) Ave Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) Average Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) 0.8 

0.6 

0.4 

0.2 

0.0 

Bayes Power Law 0.079 x 0.33, R2 = 0.40 

LLS Power Law 0.037 x0. 46, R2 = 0.40 

Oc cupants vs Ave Flow 

0 200 400 600 800 

Number of Occupants (people) 

1 F  P Model 1, ave 0 total , results from 

Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits 

1.2 

1.0 

0.8 

0.6 

0.4 

0.2 

0.0 

Exit Distance vs. Ave Flow 

Bayesian Power Law y = 2.2 x-0.32, R2 = 0.38 

LLS Power Law, y = 3.2 x-0.40, R2 = 0. 32 

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 

Max Exit Distance (m) 

1 F  D Model 2, ave 0 exit , results from 

Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits 

1.0 

0.8 

0.6 

0.4 

0.2 

0.0 

Effec t ive Width vs . Ave Flow 

Bayesian Power Law, y = 0.54 x1.4, R2 = 0.39 

LLS Power Law, y = 0.54 x2. 0, R2 = 0.33 

0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 

Effective Width of Stairs (m) 

Model 3, i i F  w

 , Bayesian Inference with all Model 3, F  w , Results from Bayesian and ave 0 eff ave 0 eff 

values from posterior mean Linear Least Squares Fits 

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Figure D-6. Results for 7 models determined by Bayesian Inference and Linear Least Squares Ave Flow of Middle 90% (people/s) 0.1 

0.2 

0.3 

0.4 

0.5 

0.6 

0.7 

0.8 

0.9 

LLS Power Law y = 0.29 P0.46D-0.40, R2 = 0.76 

Bayesian prediction vs Col 6 

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 

Predicted Ave Flows (people / s) 

1 D2 Model 4, F  P , Results from Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits ave 0 total exit Average Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) 0.1 

0.2 

0.3 

0.4 

0.5 

0.6 

0.7 

0.8 

0.9 

LLS Power Law, y = 0.35 P0.35 w1. 5, R2 = 0.53 

BayesPower Law, y = 0.16 P0.22w1. 2, R2=0.59 

0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 

Predicted Flow (people / s) 

1 2  Model 5, F  P w , Results from Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits ave 0 total eff Average Flow of Middle 90% (people / s) 0.1 

0.2 

0.3 

0.4 

0.5 

0.6 

0.7 

0.8 

0.9 

LLS Power Law, y = 2.2 D-0.30 w1. 1 , R2 = 0.37 

Bayes Power Law, y=1.5D-0.21w0.75,R2=0.48 

0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 

Predicted Flow (people / s) 

1 2  Model 6, F  D w , Results from Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits ave 0 exit eff 

Figure D-6. Results for 7 models determined by Bayesian Inference and Linear Least Squares, 

continued 

D-9 
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0.2 

0.3 

0.4 

0.5 

0.6 

0.7 

0.8 

0.9 

LLS Power Law,y=0.29P0. 44D-0.37w0.35,R2=0.79 

Bayes Power Law,y=0.30P0. 36D-0.28w0. 49,R2=0.82 

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 

Predicted Flow (people / s) 

   Model 7, 1 2 3 F  P D w , Results from Bayesian and Linear Least Squares Fits ave 0	 total exit eff 

Figure D-6. Results for 7 models determined by Bayesian Inference and Linear Least Squares, 

continued 

1. W.M. Bolstad. Understanding Computational Bayesian Statistics. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 

2010. 

2. Overholt, K. J., “Forward and Inverse Modeling of Fire Physics Towards Fire Scene 

Reconstructions.” Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 2013. 

3. T.E. Oliphant. “Python for Scientific Computing.” Computing in Science & Engineering, 

9(3):10–20, May-June 2007. 

4. T.E. Oliphant. A Guide to NumPy, volume 1. Trelgol Publishing USA, 2006. 

5. E. Jones, T. Oliphant, P. Peterson, and others. “SciPy: Open source scientific tools for 

Python,” 2001–. 

6 J. Hunter. “Matplotlib: A 2D graphics environment.” Computing In Science & Engineering, 

9(3):90–95, 2007. 

7 A. Patil, D. Huard, and C. Fonnesbeck. “PyMC: Bayesian Stochastic Modelling in Python.” 

Journal of Statistical Software, 35(4):1–81, 7 2010. 

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E. Point Process Modeling 

An egress flow past an exit door can be represented by a sequence of ordered, irregularly spaced 

time points t1 < t2 < ... < tn lying on the real line. In general, for a point process, these event 

times represent the occurrences of some random event. A point process, N(t), is a statistical 

description of the information in these events. Let N(t) represent the number of events that have 

occurred by time t and for s < t, let N(t) – N(s) represents the number of events having occurred 

in the time interval (s,t]. That is, 

N( )t  #t

i  t, i 1, ,n . (1) 

The simplest and most familiar point process is the Poisson process described by 

  k 

t P N T  ( )  k  t 

e k  0,1, 2,  (2) k ! 

The parameter λ is called the Poisson rate, because it describes the number of events occurring 

per unit time. The mean number of events occurring in the time interval (0,t] is λt. This process is 

called a homogeneous Poisson process since λ is independent of t. An example of a Poisson 

process is the arrival times of customers at a train depot. The more general nonhomogeneous 

Poisson process allows the rate to depend on t, say λ = λ(t) and the probability of k events 

occurring in (0,t] is given by 

k

m t  m t  t

 ( )  k   e

 k  0,1, 2, where ( )   PNT mt ( ) s ds (3) k ! 0 

m(t) is the mean number of events occurring in (0,t] and λ(t) is the infinitesimal expected rate of 

events at t. Cinlar [89] contains information about Poisson processes. 

The most general rate function depends at time t on the past history of the process data [90]. To 

this end, denote by Ht = σ{t1, t2, ... , tk : ti < t} the past history of the process, i.e., all events 

depending on the event times occurring up to time t. Then λ = λ(t | Ht) is called the conditional 

intensity of the point process. It is defined by 

1  N t   t   N t    H (4) t H   lim E  t  t  0  t  t 

or equivalently, for point process where no two events can occur at the same time, by 

 H  (5) t H   lim 1 P N t   t   N  t  1 t  0 t   t 

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By definition eq. (4), the conditional intensity λ(t | Ht ) is the density of the conditional mean 

intensity E[N(t) | Ht] (not necessarily a probability density). 

The data in this study are not event times for a homogeneous Poisson process. The inter-arrival 

times ti – ti-1, i=1,...,n, t0 = 0 for a homogeneous Poisson process are independent and 

exponentially distributed with mean λ. Travel and pre-observation times are highly correlated for 

egress data, due to the occupant to occupant interaction on the floor and within the stair. Sample 

traces of exit times (i.e., times at which people reach the exit location for the building) for four 

stairs included in this study are shown in Figure E-1. 

Stairwell 1A Stairwell 4B 

0 100 200 300 400 500 0 200 400 600 800 1000 

Time (s) Time (s) 

Stairwell 8S Stairwell 11-2 

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 

Time (s) Time (s) 

Figure E-1. Clustering of exit times for several sample stairs included in the study 

The plots show clustering among the exit times due to occupant to occupant interaction. 

Therefore, a reasonable starting assumption is that the intensities of the pre-observation and 

travel times depend on the event histories of these processes. In a Hawkes model [91-93] this 

clustering is due to some self-exciting mechanism within a stair and among the occupants. In a 

self-exciting process, the occurrence of an event gives rise to subsequent events [92]. This is 

typical in building evacuations, where clusters are generated by seeds, as in an epidemic model, 

and from each seed, followers or offspring are generated to produce clusters. This model has 

been used previously for a range of applications such as modeling seismic data, stock, and 

commodity data. 

The conditional intensity associated with the Hawkes model is given by 

i  e if t  t  1

H t 





 t t 

 t t  

  (6)   t i 



  if t t  1 

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where μ is the background intensity and is the component of intensity absent human interaction,  t ti  and  e      is the component of intensity representing human interaction. The t t i 

parameter α can be interpreted as the strength that a cluster will form and the damping term β

represents how fast clustering dies down with time. 

For any point process with conditional intensity t H  , the joint probability of the event t 

times t1,t2, ... , tn is 

n  u H du u

 1, ,tn   ti  

t 

L t  H e 0 (7) t

i i1 

From this, the log-likelihood for the Hawkes model is 

n     n 

n i log L t 1,,tn , ,    tn  e tt 1 log  i     A  (8)

i1  i1 

 t t j  i where Ai  e for i ≥ 2 and A1 = 0. The maximum likelihood estimates are the value of t t j i 

μ, α, and β that maximize log L t 1,,tn , , . 

It is of interest to quantify the accuracy of the maximum likelihood estimates. Let N(t) be a point 

process with bounded, strictly positive conditional intensity,  t H  and compensator t 

( )t  

t

 s H ds. Then, under the time change t ( )t , the function 0 s

1 N t  ()  N t is a unit rate Poisson process. Let τi be defined as   ( )  ( )  t and  0 1

 1  tt i  t   . The random variables i   t t     are i i   i1, i  t    i 1   i1   i 1, i 

exponentially distributed with a rate of 1. Quantile plots can be used to facilitate the residual 

analysis. 

PNt k k 

probability that k persons will exit in the time interval (0,t]. Recall that 

N t  #  ,t t , ,t t  . If the compensator is strictly increasing this is equivalent to 

The above may be used to compute the probabilities  ()  , 0,1, 2,  . That is, the 

() t t 1 2   n 

# ( )  t  ( ), ( ) t  t ( ), t ,( ) t ( ) t  . From the above, 1 2 n 

( )t k e ( )t P N ( )t k  H 

  (9)  t k! 

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This publication is available free of charge from: http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1839

Integrating gives 

s k t e s PNt k ()    P   s  k! 

d  ( )t  (10) 0 

There is no closed form expression for P t s ( )   , but it can be estimated by simulation. 

There are numerous algorithms to simulate a Hawkes process. 

Treating the stair flows as point processes also facilitates statistical analysis to allow 

determination of the relative contributions of significant engineering variables, e.g., stair width, 

tread depth, tread height, and other variables (see sections 4.5 and 4.6). Associated with each 

stair are three flow point processes: pre-observation time, travel time and total exit time; all are 

modeled as Hawkes processes with intensities 

 ˆ 

jt ti   ()   ˆ ˆ   t t   t t (11) j t  j j  e if  1 j ( )t  ˆ j if  1 

t t i 

where ˆj , ˆj , and 

ˆ 

j are maximum likelihood estimates. One can easily show that the intensity 

of the total time is a convolution of the intensities of the pre-observation time and the travel time 

intensities. A mean exit intensity for the jth stair can be derived for each stair by 

1 Tj

mj  T 0  j() s ds (12)

j 

where Tj is the largest exit time for the jth stair. Each is an average intensity of all local 

intensities ( ), s s  0, T 

 and can be thought of as an estimate of E t () H 

 . The units of  j  t 

mj are number of persons/sec and it can be shown 

1    1  T t  i



T

( )s ds     

n

e 1 (13) T 0    T i1 

Each mj can be estimated by replacing the parameters μ, α and β by their maximum likelihood 

estimates. 

E-4