NIST Technical Note 1647 

RETHINKING EGRESS: 

A VISION FOR THE FUTURE 

Workshop Proceedings 

April 1-3, 2008, Warrenton, Virginia 

Jason D. Averill and Richard D. Peacock 

Building and Fire Research Laboratory 

Ralph L. Keeney 

Duke University 

November 2009 

U.S. Department of Commerce  

Gary Locke, Secretary  

National Institute of Standards and Technology  

Patrick D. Gallagher, Deputy 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 1647

Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Tech.Note 1647, 75 pages (March 2010)

CODEN:
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ABSTRACT 

New  technologies,  design  challenges,  and  research  are  rapidly  redefining  the  state‐of‐the‐art  in 

building evacuation.  Therefore, the time is right to rethink the entire infrastructure of egress from 

buildings.    Approximately  40  experts  from  a  variety  of  disciplinary  backgrounds  assembled  in 

Warrenton, VA from April 1‐3, 2008 in order to consider building evacuation, starting with a blank 

sheet of paper.   

Structured  around  the  principles  of  “Value‐Focused  Thinking”  (a  text  authored  by  workshop 

moderator Ralph L. Keeney),  the participants were encouraged  to consider values, objectives, and 

alternatives.  This process combined  the benefits of  free‐thinking brainstorming with a  formalism 

which encouraged evaluation of the potential for new ideas.  By the conclusion of the third day, over 

400 ideas had been developed, along with metrics for future evaluation of the ideas.   

   
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Of  the  30  recommendations  published  in  the  final  report  of  the  Federal  Investigation  into  the 

Collapse of the World Trade Center, several focused on providing reliable egress for occupants from 

high‐rise  buildings.    Specifically,  “building  evacuation  systems  should  be  improved  to  include: 

system  designs  that  facilitate  safe  and  rapid  egress;  methods  for  ensuring  clear  and  timely 

emergency  communications  to  occupants;  better  occupant  preparedness  for  evacuation  during 

emergencies;  and incorporation  of  appropriate  egress  technology.”    Combined  with  the  potential 

for  the  use  of  elevators  for  evacuation  and  firefighter  access  to  revolutionize  the  process  of 

evacuation, a complete reevaluation of egress systems was warranted.   

A novel workshop, composed of a broad spectrum of disciplinary experts, provided a forum for 

discussion and innovative insights.  The principal objective of the workshop was to facilitate a 

reassessment and definition of egress objectives and to develop a vision for the future of the means 

of egress.  Roughly 40 individuals, representing world‐class expertise in architecture, disabilities, 

disasters, emergency management, engineering, firefighting, psychology, regulations/inspections, 

site development, and sociology, assembled in Warrenton, VA to envision a new future for occupant 

and firefighter safety in tall buildings.  This report is a summary of the process and findings from 

the workshop. 

The workshop was structured around the process described in “Value‐Focused Thinking” by Ralph 

Keeney.  The participants started with a set of values and objectives for occupants in high‐rise 

buildings.  By first explicitly considering high‐level values and objectives, participants were then 

better able to develop specific innovative solutions which would enable accomplishment of the 

objectives.   

The report contains five primary sections.  First, the motivation and purpose of the workshop are 

presented.  Second, the theory underlying the format of the workshop is reviewed in order to 

provide context to the meeting chronology.  Third, a summary of the events of the workshop, 

organized chronologically, is presented.  Fourth, the principal outputs of the workshop are 

presented: a summary of objectives of building egress, a list of all of the alternatives which 

accomplish one or more of the objectives, and a table which summarizes a preliminary evaluation 

of a sample cross‐section of alternatives.  Finally, the appendices include the attendees, forms used 

for brainstorming, and the results of group discussions. 

WORKSHOP FINDINGS: OBJECTIVES 

An objective is a statement of something that one desires to achieve in a given decision context. The 

decision context  for  this workshop was emergency egress  from large buildings.  It is important  to 

distinguish  between  two  types  of  objectives:  fundamental  objectives  and  means  objectives.  The 

fundamental  objectives  characterize  the essential  reasons  for interest in  the  decision  situation. A 

means  objective  is  of  interest  because  achieving  it  can  contribute  to  achieving  the  fundamental 

objectives.  The workshop produced seven  fundamental objectives, as well as a number of means 

objectives.   
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The seven fundamental objectives identified by the participants were:   

• Save lives and prevent injuries to occupants  

• Save lives and prevent injuries to firefighters/responders 

• Minimize property damage 

• Minimize impact on property operations 

• Minimize economic costs 

• Reduce stress 

• Reduce grief 

Additionally, 12 categories of means objectives were identified.  These included: 

• Enhance detection 

• Maximize situation awareness 

• Make people feel safe 

• Minimize response time 

• Enhance communications 

• Enhance safety 

• Facilitate responder access 

• Isolate fire 

• Minimize evacuation time 

• Improve knowledge about the system 

• Improve education and training 

• Provide easy egress procedures 

WORKSHOP FINDINGS: ALTERNATIVES 

Over 400 individual alternatives were identified which contributed in part or whole to the 

accomplishment of one or more of the identified objectives.  These alternatives are shown in the 

workshop findings (Section 4.0) of this report.  The alternatives were grouped into 18 categories: 

• Sprinklers / Active Suppression Systems 

• Protect in Place / Areas of Refuge 

• Building Construction Changes 

• Building Material Changes 

• Fire Service 

• Elevators 

• Societal /Regulatory / Legal Changes 

• External to the Building 

• Communication 

• Information Systems 

• Pre‐event Planning 

• Efficient Use of Egress System 

• Enhance Stairwell Evacuation / Reduce Stairwell Load 

• Design Process / Risk Informed Performance‐Based Design 

• Enhance Reliability of Building Systems 

• Event Procedural Changes 
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• Enhanced Event Detection 

• Other Alternatives 

WORKSHOP FINDINGS: EVALUATION OF CROSS‐SECTION OF ALTERNATIVES 

Finally, roughly ten percent of the alternatives (37) were selected for preliminary evaluation, which 

approximated a cross section of the total list.  The selected alternatives were each evaluated by nine 

groups  of  three  persons  using  three  distinct  criteria:  usefulness,  feasibility,  and  creativity.  

Alternatives that were identified as both highly useful and feasible, included: 

• Real‐time building / fire data to responding fire service personnel 

• Simultaneous use of elevators and stairs 

• Emergency notification system to all occupants – phone, email, TV, satellite, public address 

• Notify occupants via cell phone 

• Real time monitoring of movement in stairs 

• Install readily visible directional indicators at key locations

• Normal and emergency movement systems should be integrated 

• Enhance visibility of exit signs: larger, flashing or digital signage 

• Two‐way communication between fire service and occupants during event 

• Photoluminescent markings 

• Base designs on risk assessments 

• Electronic monitoring of all components of standpipe 

• Retrofit sprinklers in all high‐rise buildings 

• Provide hardened floors at intervals in tall buildings 

• Provide  mechanical  means  to  allow  fire  hose  to  penetrate  stairwell  doors  while  keeping 

smoke from entering 

In  conclusion,  the  workshop  produced  hundreds  of  alternatives  for  improving  egress  from 

buildings during  fire emergencies.  No single alternative addresses all egress objectives; however, 

with  further  research and  study,  some  combinations  of alternatives  have  the  potential  to  rethink 

the  entire means  of  egress  from  buildings.   A  follow‐up workshop in  the  future may  result in  an 

actionable  roadmap  to  realize  the  potential  identified  during  the  2008  Rethinking  Egress 

Workshop.   

   
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CONTENTS 

Abstract.........................................................................................................................................................3

Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................................4

1.0 Background ...........................................................................................................................................10

2.0 Workshop Format.................................................................................................................................12

Outline and Process of the Workshop .................................................................................................... 12

The Objectives of Emergency Egress. ..................................................................................................... 14

The Alternatives Generated for Emergency Egress................................................................................ 15

Appraisal of Selected Alternatives.......................................................................................................... 15

Use of the Workshop Results.................................................................................................................. 16

3.0 Workshop Session Summary................................................................................................................. 17

April 1, 2008: Day 1 of the Workshop..................................................................................................... 17

Averill: Welcome.................................................................................................................................17

Keeney: Workshop Process................................................................................................................. 18

Sanders: Fire Department Operations in High‐Rise Buildings ............................................................ 18

Jacobsen: Leveraging Information in Building Evacuation ................................................................. 19

Galioto: Challenges Facing Architects for Super‐Tall Buildings........................................................... 20

Mileti: The Social Science of Building Evacuation............................................................................... 20

Abboud: Structural Engineers, Fire, and Egress.................................................................................. 21

Nelson: The Legacy of the 1971 Airlie House High‐Rise Life Safety Conference ................................22

Alternatives and Objectives................................................................................................................ 22

April 2, 2008: Day 2 of the Workshop..................................................................................................... 23

April 3, 2008: Day 3 of the Workshop..................................................................................................... 26

Evaluation ...........................................................................................................................................26

Concluding Remarks............................................................................................................................ 27

4.0 Workshop Findings................................................................................................................................29

Consolidated Emergency Egress Objectives ........................................................................................... 29

Consolidated Alternatives to Improve Emergency Egress...................................................................... 33

Individual Evaluations of Alternatives .................................................................................................... 44

Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................................47

5.0 Appendices............................................................................................................................................48
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Appendix A: List of Attendees................................................................................................................. 49

Appendix B: Rethinking Egress Workshop Agenda................................................................................. 51

Appendix C: Forms for Structured Brainstorming................................................................................... 52

Appendix D: Techniques to Stimulate Recognition of Values................................................................. 70

Appendix E: Results from Group Discussion........................................................................................... 71

   
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ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT 

The Rethinking Egress report contains five primary sections.   

• Section 1.0 Background: the motivation and purpose of the workshop are presented. 

• Section 2.0 Workshop Format: the theory underlying the format of the workshop is 

reviewed, in order to provide context to the meeting chronology.   

• Section 3.0 Workshop Summary: a summary of the events of the workshop, organized 

chronologically, is presented.   

• Section 4.0 Workshop Findings: the principal outputs of the workshop are presented.  These 

outputs include a list of all of the identified objectives of building egress, a list of all of the 

alternatives which accomplish one or more of the objectives, and a table which summarizes 

a preliminary evaluation of a sample cross‐section of alternatives.   

• Section 5.0 Appendices: the list of attendees, forms used for brainstorming, brainstorming 

techniques, and the results of group discussions are presented.
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1.0 BACKGROUND 

Following  the  Federal  Investigation  of  the  Collapse  of  the  World  Trade  Center  and  subsequent 

report, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) partnered with with the National 

Institute of Building Sciences and its Multihazard Mitigation 

Council  (MMC)  to  implement  recommended  changes  to 

existing  standards  of  practice  and  building  codes  and 

standards.  Of the 30 recommendations published in the final 

report,  several  focused  on  providing  reliable  egress  for 

occupants  from  high‐rise  buildings.    Specifically,  “building 

evacuation  systems  should  be  improved  to  include:  system 

designs  that  facilitate  safe  and  rapid  egress;  methods  for 

ensuring  clear  and  timely  emergency  communications  to 

occupants;  better  occupant  preparedness  for  evacuation 

during emergencies; and incorporation of appropriate egress 

technology.” 

During its  deliberations,  the MMC  committee  reviewing  the 

report recommendations concluded that the use of elevators 

for  evacuation  and  firefighter  access  in  high‐rise  buildings 

had  the potential  to  revolutionize  the process  of evacuation 

to  such  a  significant  degree  that  a  complete  reevaluation  of 

egress  systems  was  warranted.    A  workshop  of  multi‐

disciplinary  experts  in  the  field  would  provide  a  forum  for 

discussion  and  innovative  insights.  In  collaboration  with 

NIST  staff,  a  small  number  of  technical  experts  were 

identified  to  assist  with  planning  the  workshop,  shown  on 

the left of this page.  

Workshop  planning  sessions  were  held  in‐person  and  by 

conference call, throughout 2007.  Early in the planning, the 

value  of  a  professional  moderator  with  expertise  in 

structured  brainstorming  was  identified.    Ralph  Keeney 

(Duke University) was retained in order to help organize the 

workshop  around  the  framework  described  in  his  seminal 

text,  “Value‐Focused  Thinking:  A  Path  to  Creative 

Decisionmaking.”*    Subsequently,  the  workshop  was 

scheduled for April 1‐3, 2008, at the Airlie Conference Center 

in Warrenton, Virginia.   

   

                                                            

* Keeney, Ralph L.  “Value‐Focused Thinking.”  Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.  1992. 

Rethinking Egress

Planning

• Najib Abboud of

Weidlinger Associates

• Carl Galioto of Skidmore,

Owings & Merrill, LLP

• Clas Jacobson of United

Technologies

• Dennis Mileti of the

University of ColoradoBoulder

• Russ Sanders of the

National Fire Protection

Association

Rethinking Egress

Moderator

• Ralph Keeney of Duke

University
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Trust that little voice in 

your head that says 

"Wouldn't it be interesting if...” 

 

And then do it. 

 

- Duane Michals 
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2.0 WORKSHOP FORMAT 

The  principal  objective  of  the workshop was  to  facilitate  a  reassessment  and  definition  of egress 

objectives  and  to  develop  a  vision  for  the  future  of  the  means  of  egress.    As  the  genesis  of  the 

workshop was the findings from the Investigation of the World Trade Center collapse, a particular 

emphasis was  placed  on egress  from  tall  buildings.    The  process  used  to  structure  the workshop 

was  based  on  the  framework  described  in  the  seminal  decision  sciences  text,  “Value‐Focused 

Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking,” by Ralph Keeney.  Keeney was retained to moderate 

the  workshop  in  order  to  maximize  the  effectiveness  of  the  process.    This  section  presents  the 

structure and format for the workshop in order that the reader can better interpret the workshop 

results and findings.  The process included three basic steps: identify objectives (what do you want 

to  accomplish?),  identify  alternatives  (how  do  you  want  to  accomplish  your  objective?),  and 

evaluation  of  alternatives.    The  flow  chart  for  this  process is  shown in  Figure  1  on  the  following 

page.   

OUTLINE AND PROCESS OF THE WORKSHOP 

The  overall  structure  of  the workshop was  based  on  three  premises:  (1) 

all thinking is done in individual’s minds, as there is no collective mind, (2) 

in  discussions, individuals  tend  to  narrow  their  thinking  to  focus  on  the 

discussed content, and (3) individuals working in a group can expand on 

the  ideas  of  others.  Hence,  we  wanted  to  stimulate  thinking  by  the 

individuals  to get all  of  the  relevant ideas  from each individual  first, and 

then expand these with personal interaction.  

Thus, in the morning of the first day, we initially asked individuals to write 

every idea  that  they  thought would  be  relevant  to  the workshop,  so  that 

they  would  be  less  concerned  about  exactly  when  their  points  of  view 

would  be  discussed  and more  willing  to  create  new ideas. However,  the 

bulk  of  the  first  morning  was  five  presentations  from  different

perspectives  on  the  problem  of egress.  In  the  first afternoon, individuals 

worked alone using a variety of techniques to generate egress alternatives 

and  a  set  of  objectives  that  they  hoped  would  be  achieved  by  such 

alternatives. This provided a foundation for the next two days.   

In  the  morning  of  day  2,  participants  met  in  groups  of  approximately 

seven to create additional alternatives based on their collective thoughts. 

Then,  the  entire  workshop  discussed  some  of  these  alternatives  and 

embellished  them.  On  the  second  afternoon,  the  individual  groups 

considered in detail two processes: effective egress and fire fighting. Three 

groups  identified  all  of  the  steps  that  would  be  necessary  for  effective 

egress  from  a  very  large  building,  and  one  group  listed  all  the  steps 

necessary for fighting a fire in a very large building. These steps were then 

used to generate still more potential alternatives to facilitate egress.  

The third morning of the workshop included a preliminary evaluation of a 

subset  of  the  alternatives.    One  purpose  was  to  find  out  the  types  of 

Key Definitions

Values: anything that 

one cares about 

concerning the 

decision. 

Objectives:  a 

statement of 

something that one 

desires to achieve.   

Alternatives: actions 

totally under the 

control of a decision 

maker that may 

influence the degree to 

which at least one of 

the objectives is 

achieved. 
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alternatives  that seemed most useful and  that had a high  feasibility of being practical in  the near 

future.  A  second  purpose  was  to  identify  those  categories  of  alternatives  that  were  particularly 

creative,  and  hence,  perhaps more  appropriate  for  further in‐depth  creative  activities  to  develop 

additional alternatives. 

FIGURE 1: FLOW CHART FOR VALUE­FOCUSED THINKING
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THE OBJECTIVES OF EMERGENCY EGRESS 

An objective is a statement of something that one desires to achieve in a given decision context. In 

our  situation,  the  decision  context  is  emergency  egress  from  large  buildings.  It  is  important  to 

distinguish  between  two  types  of  objectives:  fundamental  objectives  and  means  objectives.  The 

fundamental  objectives  characterize  the essential  reasons  for interest in  the  decision  situation. A 

means  objective  is  of  interest  because  achieving  it  can  contribute  to  achieving  the  fundamental 

objectives. 

To identify the objectives for a given decision situation is not easy. One begins with the set of values 

appropriate  to  the  decision,  in  which  values  are  defined  as  anything  that  one  cares  about 

concerning  the  decision.    Therefore,  the  concepts  and  techniques  of  value‐focused  thinking  were 

used in this workshop to stimulate the identification and creation of alternatives to facilitate egress 

from large buildings. The principal steps are summarized in Figure 1.  First, all the values of each of 

the individuals were identified. These values were then used to specify a clear and coherent set of 

objectives  for emergency egress.  Each of  the objectives identified by an individual was  then used 

by  that individual  to  create  alternatives  that  could  better  achieve  those  objectives.  Subsequently, 

individuals  worked  in  groups  to  identify  additional  alternatives  through  their  collective  creative 

processes.  The entire procedure might be referred to as value‐focused brainstorming. 

In identifying the list of values that provide a basis for objectives, each individual was asked to list 

all  values  they  felt were  appropriate  for  the  decision.   However,  experience  suggests  that  almost 

everyone ends up with an incomplete list, so there are a number of techniques to stimulate thinking 

about additional values. The techniques that we used in the workshop are given in Appendix D. 

Once a set of values was listed by an individual, the individuals were asked to restate each value as 

an  objective.  An  objective  can  be  stated  using  a  verb  and  an  object,  such  as  maximize  safety, 

minimize lives saved,  or avoid property damage. With  this common  format  for  stating  objectives, 

they are much easier to understand and much easier to structure.  

After each of the individuals converted each of their values to objectives, all of the objectives were 

organized on the first evening of the workshop and a means‐ends objectives network was created. 

This  network  included  the  fundamental  objectives  and  the  means  objectives  for  decisions 

concerning  emergency  egress.  The  basic  information  used  to  create  the  means‐ends  objectives 

network is presented in the workshop findings (Section 4.0) of this report. This list deleted multiple 

statements of the same objectives and organized the objectives into categories.  

Each objective concerned only one object of importance. Value tradeoffs among the achievement of 

different  objectives  are  obviously  critical  in  evaluating  or  choosing  alternatives,  but  such  value 

tradeoffs  are  not  desirable  at  the  stage  of  listing  and  organizing  objectives.  As  an  example,  one 

means objective is to minimize egress time and one fundamental objective is to minimize injuries to 

individuals. There certainly would be cases where rushing the egress to reduce the egress time to a 

minimum  could  result  in  additional  injuries  to  those  evacuating  the  building.  This  would  not 

necessarily be preferred to a slower egress that did not cause those injuries. This preference would 

naturally  be  addressed  in  dealing  with  the  value  tradeoffs  among  objectives  and  with  the 

consequences that the means objectives have on the fundamental objectives. Those tradeoffs must 

be recognized, but we do not need to state a means objective such as to “reduce egress times while 

maintaining safety”, as this would combine two objectives and the implied causal effects and value 
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tradeoffs into that one objective. To do so mixes up the notions of what are the objectives and what 

are the relationships, both causal effects and value tradeoffs, among them. 

THE ALTERNATIVES GENERATED FOR EMERGENCY EGRESS 

An alternative is defined as any action that is totally under the control of a decision maker that may 

influence  the degree  to which at least  one  of  the  objectives  of emergency egress is achieved. The 

decision maker can decide to implement it or decide not to implement it. Every alternative should 

at least  contribute  positively  to achieving  one  of  the means  objectives  or  one  of  the  fundamental 

objectives. If this did not happen, then of course there would be no reason to consider it. 

During  the  workshop,  there  was  a  discussion  about  whether  the  term  alternative  should  be 

something  different  including  option,  tactic,  strategy,  choice  and  so  forth.  In  this  document,  we 

mean  that  the alternatives are  the aggregation of any of  those similar ideas, where similar means 

something under the control of decision makers that can be done that would influence egress.  

Note that most alternatives are not complete solutions. Rather, one might rather think of  these as 

elements  of  alternatives.  Specifically,  one  could  do  something that  would  facilitate  movement  of 

disabled  people in  stairways in  a  particular  building.  This  does  not mean  that would  be  the  only 

thing  that would be done  to  facilitate emergency egress. Other alternatives  that might reduce  the 

size  of  a  fire  once  it  had  started  in  a  building  or  that  would  better  communicate  information  to 

people  about  how  to  egress in  the  event  of  an  emergency  could  also  be implemented.  Thus, it is 

appropriate  to consider many of  the alternatives generated in  this workshop as elements of what 

might be considered a complete package of potential solutions. 

The  complete  list  of  alternatives  developed  at  the  workshop  is  given  in  the  workshop  findings 

(Section 4.0) of this report. In addition, this section presents the categories of alternatives that the 

workshop  team  subsequently  developed  on  the  second  evening  to  facilitate  communication  and 

organization  of  the alternatives. This  organization was also helpful  for a  rough appraisal  of  some 

alternatives as discussed in the next section. 

APPRAISAL OF SELECTED ALTERNATIVES 

On  the  last  day  of  the  workshop,  each  of  the  participants  were  asked  to  evaluate  about  40 

alternatives selected by the workshop staff.  While the results are shown in the workshop findings 

(Section 4.0, Table 1) of this report, it is important to note that the results are very preliminary for 

several reasons. First, the alternatives were not necessarily well‐defined, as they were described by 

only a  few words. Second, information was not available about details of  the alternatives, such as 

how it might be implemented. Third, different participants naturally had their expertise in different 

aspects  of  egress  and  may  not  have  had  a  complete  understanding  of  other  aspects.  And  the 

knowledge of some participants about certain aspects of an alternative was not available  to other 

participants.  Recognizing  these  caveats,  it  remained  useful  to  go  through  the  preliminary 

evaluation. 

The  preliminary  evaluation was  a  very  quick  appraisal  of  the  summary  comments  of  the  various 

individuals.  The  alternatives  were  evaluated  by  nine  groups  of  three  individuals.  They  were 

evaluated on three criteria: quality, feasibility, and creativity.  
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• Quality  was  defined  as  how  effective  the  alternative  could  be,  assuming  that  it  could  be 

implemented.  

• Feasibility was defined as the chance that the alternative could be effectively implemented 

within 10 years.  

• Creativity concerned the originality of the idea.  

From observing the teams in the process of discussing and evaluating the alternatives, it appeared 

that it would be worthwhile to develop a more substantial and clearer evaluation form and process. 

This  may  provide  insights  about  the  low‐hanging‐fruit,  meaning  the  alternatives  that  almost 

everybody  would  agree  on  in  terms  of  overall  effectiveness  and  on  how  quickly  they  can  be 

implemented  to  improve  egress.  This  evaluation  would  also  try  to  identify  some  types  of  the 

alternatives where very creative ideas might have a big impact in the future. 

USE OF THE WORKSHOP RESULTS 

The  set  of  objectives  provide  a  sound  basis  for  creating  alternatives  and  for  subsequently 

evaluating  alternatives  for  emergency  egress.  It  also  provides  a  basis  for  modification  and 

improvement.  Given  the  way  the  set  of  objectives  was  obtained  as  a  collection  from  numerous 

knowledgeable individuals, we would expect  that  the scope of  these objectives would incorporate 

most  of  the  concerns  one  would  have  with  emergency  egress.  However,  there  are  likely  some 

concerns  missing  and  many  of  the  concerns  that  are  explicitly  included  might  be  focused  more 

clearly with additional thinking. 

The  set  of  alternatives  for  emergency  egress  documents  a large number  of  potential  actions  that 

one  can  consider.  This  should  provide  a  foundation  for  any  additions  that might  be  made in  the 

future.  It  seems  reasonable  that  there  would  be  thousands  of  potential  alternatives  that  could 

facilitate  emergency  egress  from  buildings.  The  set  of  alternatives  documented  here,  and  their 

categories, begin to define the full scope for most of the types of alternatives that might be feasible 

within a 10‐20 year period. We believe that additional types of alternatives can likely be identified 

and  within  both  new  and  existing  categories,  additional  focus  in  creating  alternatives  would  be 

useful. 

   
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3.0 WORKSHOP SESSION SUMMARY 

The  principal  objective  of  this  highly‐interactive,  free‐thinking  workshop  was  to  facilitate  a 

reassessment  and  definition  of  egress  objectives  and  to  develop  of  a  vision  for  the  future  of  the 

means of egress, especially in tall buildings.  The agenda for the workshop is shown in Appendix B.   

APRIL 1, 2008: DAY 1 OF THE WORKSHOP 

AVERILL: WELCOME 

Jason Averill of NIST opened  the workshop by welcoming everyone present, along with  the wider 

audience  participating  via  webcast.    First,  Averill  highlighted  some  of  the  constraints  of  current 

egress systems and practices in high rise buildings.  A concept as simple as building stairs is poorly 

understood: for example, how much benefit is conveyed to the occupants by an incremental change 

in stair width?  Given the substantial up‐front, life‐cycle, and opportunity costs of stairwells, Averill 

argued that a stronger technical basis for performance should be established. 

Next, he urged participants to consider the elevators.  Since everyone enters a building by elevators, 

and we know that people tend to exit the way that they entered, shouldn’t we use elevators to exit 

most  tall buildings?  As buildings are designed  to be  taller  than ever,  the impetus  to improve our 

understanding and performance of egress system is magnified. 

Averill contended that the current state of egress requirements reflects three realities: lack of basic 

research, lack of concentrated effort directed at the problem, and regulatory inertia.  This workshop 

was seen as a first step towards defining an egress system which is reliable, robust, cost effective, 

and well‐understood.   

Averill  described  the  participants  as  representative  of  the  continuum  of  disciplines  which 

contribute to the safety of people in buildings during egress.  He also emphasized that the mission 

of  the workshop was  to explore emergency egress in  buildings  considering  the interaction  of  the 

physical and social environments.  The ground rules for the workshop were stated: 

•  Everything discussed is part of the public domain. 

•  The  discussion  is  to  be  positive,  because  an  atmosphere  of  creativity,  free  thought,  and 

sharing yields better results. 

•  Participation by everyone is of the utmost importance. 

•  Participants should be open to the process of structured brainstorming. 

After reviewing the logistics for on‐site participants and introducing the experts who assisted with 

the planning of the workshop, Averill turned over the floor to the moderator, Ralph Keeney.   
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KEENEY: WORKSHOP PROCESS 

Keeney briefly described his background, and reviewed the purpose of the workshop.  The principal 

resource  available  for  the  success  of  the  workshop  was  the  vast  experience  of  the  assembled 

experts.  Therefore, the purpose of the moderator was to enable the transfer of the vast experiences 

in the minds of the participants onto paper.  After briefly reviewing the agenda, Keeney turned the 

floor  over  to  the  presenters.    The  remainder  of  the  morning  was  devoted  to  presentations.    The 

purpose  of  the  presentations  was  to  establish  a  foundation  of  common  knowledge  that  would 

enable all of the participants to better apply their disciplinary expertise in the context of the other 

disciplines.    Presentations  were  delivered  by  Russ  Sanders,  Clas  Jacobsen,  Carl  Galioto,  Dennis 

Mileti, Najib Abboud, and Bud Nelson.   

SANDERS: FIRE DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS IN HIGH‐RISE BUILDINGS 

Russ  Sanders  reviewed  fire  department  operations  with  respect  to  building  occupant  and 

firefighter  safety.   As a context  for  operations, Sanders  discussed  risk assessment and mitigation.  

Risks  for  the  fire  service  responding  to  a  building  fire  tend  to  increase  with  the  height  of  the 

building for several reasons: 

• Most aerial apparatus can reach only 8 stories.  This removes  the option  of rescue by  fire 

department ladder above 8 stories.   

• Master  streams  are  rarely  effective  and  therefore,  the  fire  service  is  forced  to  rely  on 

offensive interior operations, which tend to be the most dangerous operations. 

• Lead times to get people and equipment (tools and air bottles, e.g.) high in a building can be 

significant.  

• The taller the building, the larger the number of people who can be caught above the fire.  

Sanders then reviewed the process of  fire scene size‐up, including determination of building type, 

size, time of day, location of fire, presence of built‐in protection systems (sprinklers in‐particular).   

The incident commander (IC) has three basic priorities upon arrival on the scene of a building fire:  

• life safety,  

• extinguishment, and  

• property protection.   

These are not independent, but interdependent concerns.  In order to address these concerns, the 

fire service must address complex and evolving challenges, including ventilation within buildings, 

fire suppression, situation awareness, and  the interface between  fire service and occupants in  the 

stairwells.    For  example,  one  of  the  most  complex  aspects  of  high‐rise  firefighting  is  ventilation.  

While  the  fire service puts out a  fire with water, it controls the  fire by controlling  the ventilation.  

Properly controlled ventilation can dramatically reduce the risks to the occupants and firefighters, 

while improper ventilation can result in civilian or firefighter deaths. 

The only way  for the  fire service to verify that a building has been evacuated is to conduct both a 

primary  and  secondary  search.    This  requires  that  the  fire  service maintain  control  and integrity 

(free of smoke and heat) of the stairwells.  Pre‐planning and knowledge of the characteristics of the 

building when the fire department arrives on‐scene is a significant advantage.  This requires active 
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participation of  the building management, who are most knowledgeable about  the specifics of  the 

fire safety systems.   

JACOBSEN: LEVERAGING INFORMATION IN BUILDING EVACUATION 

Clas  Jacobsen reviewed the role of information technology (IT) in building evacuation.  He told us 

that we need to manage the flow of mass, energy, and bits.  Mass is the flow of people through the 

building, energy is the fire, while bits is the data and information; in modern buildings, the bits are 

growing  dramatically  over  time.    The  challenges  going  forward  are  to  use  computation  and 

communication to enhance egress performance.   

We have dynamically evolving information flows.  In order to harness this information, the building 

community  needs  to  consider  three  basic  questions:  who  pays,  who  plays  and  who  decides?    An 

important  testbed  for  understanding  the  evolution  of  these  information  systems  is  modeling.  

Modeling  makes  precise  what  the  underlying  problems  in  the  system  are,  while  also  providing 

uniformity.   

Jacobsen then discussed some of the many problems with integrating all of this information into a 

single systems approach:  

• Systems issues are multiscale and multiphysics.   

• Uncertainty propagation in  the system can overwhelm  the utility of  the output.  However, 

one approach is to consider the use of reduced‐order models  

• Codes  and  regulations  need  to  keep  up  with  “cyberphysical”  systems:  IT  controlling 

physical systems. 

• The information should be available in multiple locations: off‐site (en‐route for firefighters) 

and on‐site (through a fire panel).   

• Information  flows  are  diffuse  and  lack  organization.    Opportunities  for  analysis  and 

presentation  to occupants and  firefighters should be considered, such as decision support 

tools.   

• The human‐machine interface requires development.   

• Current  generation  predictive  models  currently  are  computationally  expensive.    New 

techniques in reductive methods should be considered in order to produce answers on the 

time scale required for actionable results.   

• The interfaces between components are where many problems emerge.  The  systems are 

dynamic; in particular, the time scales do not always align.   
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GALIOTO: CHALLENGES FACING ARCHITECTS FOR SUPER‐TALL BUILDINGS 

Carl Galioto provided a review of  the state‐of‐the art of super‐tall building design using examples 

from  the  tallest  buildings  currently  under  construction.    Growing  economies  are  building  towers 

taller than ever before.  Along with the height of the building come increasing demands for security 

at several levels: perimeter, enclosure, core, and emergency access core.  These requirements often 

conflict  with  the  goals  of  building  egress  and  emergency  services  ingress.    One  solution  which 

included  use  of  pressurization  systems  and  protected  elevators  currently  utilized  in  high‐rise 

design was reviewed.   

The  majority  of  tall  buildings  are  mixed‐use  buildings.    The  use‐groups  often  found  at  highest 

portions of super‐tall buildings (observation decks, restaurants, hotels, assembly spaces, e.g.), often 

include  occupants  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  egress  systems  in  the  building,  which  creates  a 

particular challenge for high‐rise egress design 

Finally, Galioto compared the increased risk of designing high‐rise buildings to the increased risk of 

ships  out  at  sea.    Those  ships  require  life  boats  which  are  able  to  protect  passengers  from  an 

adverse event on the ship.  Super‐high‐rise buildings require innovative egress solutions which are 

comparable to the risks inherent to the building under consideration. 

MILETI: THE SOCIAL SCIENCE OF BUILDING EVACUATION 

Dennis Mileti summarized the state‐of‐the‐art knowledge base from psychology, social psychology, 

sociology, and  human  factors as it  related  to  building evacuation  or  other appropriate  protective 

actions.    The  research  base  for  the  talk  extends  over  60  years  and  was  compiled  by  Mileti  and 

Kuligowski.   

The factors which influence human behaviour are well‐known.  By consolidating and implementing 

this body of knowledge, egress performance can be improved.  Key findings include: 

• Panic can happen, but is rare and words cannot prevent or cause panic.  However, building 

design can influence panic: e.g., doors that swing outwards and sufficiency of egress paths. 

• Building evacuation is not a continuous process.  It happens in “lumps and bumps.”   

• Alarms should interrupt ongoing life.  However, the alarm simply sends people in search of 

additional  information.    People  don’t  remember  indicators,  unless  the  indicator  is  drilled 

into people, relentlessly.  To alert people, the alarm should be as intrusive as possible. 

• People  are  hard‐wired  to  think  they  are  safe,  that  disasters  happen  to  other  people,  and 

therefore, that it is probably a false‐alarm.   

• Conflicting  information  abounds.    Formal  alerts  compete  with  informal  alerts,  which  are 

cues from the surrounding environment that something is wrong. 

• Seconds  of delay can cost lives in a  fire emergency, but people are wired  to perceive  that 

they  are  safe.    Until  they  confirm  the  risk  through  milling  (talking  with  other  people)  or 

external cues, occupants will delay. 

• When instructions  are  delivered  to  occupants,  several  aspects  of  communication  are  well 

established in the literature: 

o Channels:  the  more  the  better.    If  you  want  people  to  take  an  action,  warn  them 

through as many channels as possible and ensure consistency amongst channels. 
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o Frequency:  the  same  message  should  be  repeated  as  many  times  as  possible; 

Madison  Avenue  has  known  for  years  that  people  will  not  remember  something 

until you repeat it ten times. 

o Content: the single most important message that can be delivered to an occupant is 

what  you  want  them  to  do.    Don’t  talk  about  the  fire  or  the  earthquake,  but  give 

them specific, actionable advice. 

o Style: keep it simple, precise, authoritative, accurate, and avoid jargon.  Be internally 

consistent. 

o Source:  tell  them  who  is  speaking.    The  most  authoritative  source  is  different 

depending  on  the  situation,  but  surveys  indicate  that  firefighters  are  the  most 

authoritative source in the United States (but for only 35% of the population). 

• Cues  are  critical.    Fire  trucks,  smoke,  flames,  and  floor  wardens  who  are  leading  an 

evacuation  are  all  strong  cues.    Meanings  may  be  different,  however,  depending  on  the 

filters  that  occupants  bring  to  the  event.    Filters  include  education,  age,  gender,  race, 

language, associations with co‐workers, parental status, social isolation, experience, etc. 

• Information needs do not cease when the alarm is sounded.  Once the occupants are started, 

they still require additional guidance. 

ABBOUD: STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS, FIRE, AND EGRESS 

Najib Abboud discussed how the patterns of increased urbanization are driving the trend towards 

taller buildings.  The trend is being set on a worldwide stage, and is currently focused on multi‐use 

skyscrapers (vertical cities).  The driving force behind the multi‐use prototype is risk management: 

if one real estate sector is down, the other use groups can maintain a revenue stream for the owner.  

This  presents  challenges  for  a  single  building  core  to  serve  all  of  the  different  occupancies,  both 

structurally and from an egress perspective.  With that background, Abboud then summarized three 

challenges  for  the  structural  engineering  community:  public  policy,  integration  of  fire  and 

structural engineering, and materials innovations in response to new threats. 

The first challenge is establishment of public policy.  Standardization sets a level playing field from 

an economic perspective.  Without standards, few projects will break the trend.  What is safe?  What 

is life safety?  How long do you need the building to stand?  These are the public policy questions 

that codes and standards need to specify.  The technical challenges are achievable once the public 

policy is established.   

The  second  challenge  is  to  integrate  fire  engineering  with  structural  engineering.    The  two 

disciplines are as unintegrated as can be.  The only way that structural engineers can think of fire is 

as  a  load.    Conversely,  the  information  needs  to  be  provided  to  the  structural  engineer  in  those 

terms:  intensity,  duration,  location,  and  statistical  probability.    Hurricanes  and  earthquakes  are 

reduced to return frequency, and fire needs to be considered similarly. 

The  third  challenge is  to  adopt lightweight,  flexible materials which  can  resist  a  variety  of loads, 

including  blast,  fire,  and  vandalism.    Traditional  materials  are  either  too  heavy  to  build  tall 

buildings with or too light to resist the variety of loads imposed.  New materials such as one‐inch, 

ultra‐high strength concrete are being developed to ensure integrity of the core, including stairwell 

enclosures  which can preserve exit paths for evacuating occupants. 
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NELSON: THE LEGACY OF THE 1971 AIRLIE HOUSE HIGH‐RISE LIFE SAFETY 

CONFERENCE 

To conclude the invited presentations portion of the workshop, Bud Nelson shared his experience 

with the 1971 Airlie House Conference of High Rise Life Safety, which served as an inspiration for 

the current workshop.  The objective of the 1971 conference was to bring independent disciplines 

together  and  develop  the  concept  of  a  systems  approach  to  fire  in  high‐rise  buildings.    The  first 

element  of  the  systems  approach  was  the  threat  from  fire.    The  second  element  was  force 

modification (sprinklers, compartmentation, etc).  The  third element was   to protect  the exposed.  

All  of  these  systems  concepts  can  be  translated  directly  to  an  analysis  of  the  egress  system.  

However, much additional research will be required in order to prevent ‘garbage in, gospel out.’ 

The 1971 workshop had tremendous impact on the design of today’s high rise buildings, including 

the advent of deterministic modelling. Concepts of fire safety evaluation system, performance based 

design, and  systemic  building  design  can  trace many  of  their  roots  right  back  to  the Airlie House 

Conference Center.  Indeed, a workshop can have tremendous impact.  But only if the participants 

carry forward the ideas.   

DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVES AND OBJECTIVES 

During  the  afternoon  session,  participants  worked  independently  to  identify  egress  alternatives 

and objectives  for  the workshop.  Using  forms† distributed by Keeney, participants were asked  to 

put their thoughts on paper and then to discuss these thoughts as a mechanism for generating more 

ideas.  Once completed, the  forms were collected with the promise that they would be copied and 

returned and that the thoughts and ideas written on the forms would later be summarized by NIST 

staff  and  the  summary  distributed  so  that  it  could  serve  as  the  foundation  for  later  discussions.  

Participants devoted the remainder of the afternoon session to:

•  Listing alternatives that may enhance egress (Form 2), 

•  Listing objectives that may enhance egress (Form 3), 

•  Listing values (what the participants care about regarding egress. Form 4), 

•  Expanding the list of values (Form 5), 

•  Convert each of the values to objectives (Form 6), and 

•  Creating alternatives or elements of alternatives using each objective (Form 7). 

Keeney  pointed  out  that  listing  objectives  is  important  to  better  understand  the  breadth  of  the 

egress  issue  and  to  provide  a  basis  to  stimulate  the  creation  of  alternatives.    Alternatives  are 

important because their implementation, after refinement, is how one improves egress. 

During the evening of the first day, the NIST staff and Keeney synthesized the results and developed 

a comprehensive list of objectives.  The list can be found in the workshop findings (Section 4.0) of 

this report.   

                                                            

† The forms used in this and the forms used in subsequent workshop exercises are included with the 

workshop agenda in Appendix A.  
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APRIL 2, 2008: DAY 2 OF THE WORKSHOP 

Keeney  greeted  everyone  and  explained  the  agenda  for  the  day  and  how  the  results  from  the 

previous  day were  synthesized.   He  utilized  a means‐ends  objective  network  as  a  framework  for 

organizing the objectives collected from Day 1 of the workshop.:  

Keeney  noted  that  the  fundamental  objectives  listed  by  the  workshop  participants  were  very 

similar and could be summarized by the following objectives: 

•  Save lives of occupants and of firefighters/responders 

•  Prevent injuries to occupants and of firefighters/responders 

•  Minimize property damage 

•  Minimize impact on property operations 

•  Minimize economic costs 

•  Reduce stress 

•  Reduce grief 

Keeney  pointed  out  that  they  arrived  at  these  fundamental  objectives  by  grouping  participant 

responses  into  general  categories  and  relating  means  to  ends,  which  are  what  become  the 

fundamental objectives..   

FIGURE 2: MEANS‐ENDS OBJECTIVES NETWORK FOR EMERGENCY EGRESS 

Enhance 

 safety 

Fundamental Objectives

Save lives 

 -occupants 

 -responders 

Prevent injuries 

 -occupants 

 -responders 

Minimize economic costs 

Minimize property damage 

Min. impact on property operations 

Reduce stress 

Reduce grief to relatives and friends 

Enhance 

 communication 

Isolate 

 fire 

Enhance 

 detection 

Provide easy 

 egress procedures 

Facilitate 

 responder 

 access 

Improve education 

 and training 

Minimize 

response 

 time 

Min. evacuation 

 time 

Make people 

Maximize situation feel safe 

 awareness 

Improve knowledge 

 about system 

“ ” means “influences” 
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Keeney  said  that  the  alternatives  listed  on  the  forms  could  affect  the  achievement  of  all 

fundamental objectives.  He also mentioned that among the responses, there were some objectives 

that  had  crept  in  among  the  alternatives  as  well  as  some  alternatives  among  the  objectives.  The 

obvious changes were made to put both objectives and alternatives in their appropriate lists.  The 

remainder  of  the  morning  session  was  devoted  to  working  group  discussions  to  expand  the 

alternatives.   

During the afternoon, the working groups focused on effective egress and fire fighting.  The result 

was  a  detailed  description  of  the  steps involved in  effective  egress  from  a  very  tall  building,  and 

additional  alternatives  for  facilitating  egress  were  identified.    The  deliberations  of  each  of  the 

working groups are summarized in Appendix E.     

Considerable  discussion was  devoted  to  the  sky  bridge  concept and  the idea  of  buildings  sharing 

resources and equipment.  Opinions varied on the ideas.  It was noted that the use of sky bridges is 

being explored in Australia, but that it is a massive undertaking that requires a totally new way of 

thinking and modifications to building codes.  Others indicated that the concept is a difficult one to 

use and should be considered only on a case by case basis.  Still others suggested that egress is only 

one benefit of sky bridges; they can be used to create an urban network with vertical links within 

buildings  and  people  become  familiar  with  their  evacuation  routes  because  those  are  the  routes 

they use on a daily basis.  One group member mentioned the 1969 book, Urban Design Manhattan, 

which explored the idea of interconnecting buildings on many levels but did not specifically address 

emergency egress.  A proposal for redevelopment of the World Trade Center complex called for the 

use  of  sky  bridges,  but  it  was  unsuccessful;  it  would  have  been  a  very  good  example  of  how  to 

develop  a large  site into  one  complex  of  functional, integrated  buildings.  Technical  design issues 

involving  such  things  as  different  response  frequencies  were mentioned  as were  the legal issues 

(not simply a contractual issue but also an entitlement issue in real estate law).  It was noted that 

elevators account for about 15 percent of a tall building’s energy usage and that sky bridges linking 

lower floors could reduce elevator use and, consequently, energy use and cost.  

During  discussion  of  the  egress  process and  the  firefighting  process,  both  processes involved  the 

following steps: 

•  Determining that an event has occurred, 

•  Verifying that the event is real or false,   

•  Notifying people that an event is taking place and action is needed, and 

•  People receiving this information and determining the correct action to take. 

Differences in  function – high rise buildings of mixed occupancy and use, assembly buildings, and 

general  use  buildings  – were  discussed in  terms  of  the impact  building  use  has  on egress  system 

requirements. 

During the afternoon session, the group reconvened to hear and debate the results of the working 

group  discussions.  Averill  suggested  the  each  group  provide  a  summary  of  their  discussion  and 

identify the steps taken in the process as well as alternatives discussed and other ideas addressed 

for a significant amount of time.  Summaries of the working group discussions appear in Appendix 

E. 
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Once the participants convened again as a single group, Averill asked whether specific areas require 

long‐term  research.   The general  consensus was  that information and  communication  techniques 

are most in need of improvement. It was felt that this is where research, organization, and funding 

should  be  concentrated.    Another  point  of  view  was  that  presenting  technical  aspects  to  a  non‐

technical audience warrants more work. There are also many questions about cost, research could 

strive toward more cost‐effective solutions and dual purpose solutions to satisfy clients and justify 

the cost. It was also noted that the technological ability to get information exists and this data needs 

to be displayed, in real time, in such a way that staff on the scene and then the first responders can 

evaluate  the data.  Another point brought up was  that emergency egress is directly influenced by 

how the everyday people movement functions.   

Averill  pointed  out  that NIST  has  started  a  systematic  program  of  data  collection  of  fire  drills in 

buildings.  This covers multiple occupancies, heights, and counter flow issues. A matrix exists that 

we’re trying to fill out over time in order to find out how these systems behave. Another aspect of 

the  study is  the  human  behavior issues. We  have  all  the  equipment  to  gather  this  data  but  have 

encountered problems gaining access to buildings. He continued that there are differences between 

fire drill data and real emergency data and of course right now only fire drill data is available.      

   
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APRIL 3, 2008: DAY 3 OF THE WORKSHOP 

Averill reminded everyone that up until this point the discussion concentrated heavily on objectives 

and  alternatives  and  the  context  of  building  egress.    This  information  needs  to  be  used  in  the 

discussion of moving forward, he stated.    

The last day was devoted to discussing the groups’ ideas of where the efforts and research are best 

targeted.  The  lists  of  alternative  suggestions  were  synthesized  and  many  new  innovative  ideas 

came up.  The list was divided into categorical ideas. Averill also suggested other topics for general 

discussion  such  as  gaps,  research  areas,  implementation,  and  research  and  development  −  in 

general, areas that may have been missed.   

Peacock explained how several NIST staff took all 400+ alternatives (listed in the following section 

of  this  report)  and  organized  them  into  categories;  means,  methods,  tactics,  and  strategies.    The 

bins were:  

• Sprinklers / Active Suppression Systems 

• Protect in Place / Areas of Refuge 

• Building Construction Changes 

• Building Material Changes 

• Fire Service 

• Elevators 

• Societal / Regulatory / Legal Changes 

• External to the Building 

• Communication 

• Information Systems 

• Pre‐event Planning 

• Efficient Use of Egress System 

• Enhance Stairwell Evacuation / Reduce Stairwell Load 

• Design Process / Risk Informed Performance‐Based Design 

• Enhance Reliability of Building Systems 

• Event Procedural Changes 

• Enhanced Event Detection 

• Other Alternatives 

EVALUATION 

The last exercise of the workshop was to separate into groups of 3‐4 persons and go through all the 

ideas  and  rate  them  using  a  numeric  scale  from  1‐9  on  the  viability  of  the  various  ideas.    The 

participants were urged  to draw on  their expertise  to rate  the ideas and determine how different 

and “out of the box” the ideas are compared to current practices.  The forms (presented in Appendix 

C) were passed out and everyone  formed small groups.  Upon completion of  the assessments,  the 

input was  then averaged in order  to determine how  the group rated  the alternatives.  During  this 

time there was continued discussion on the benefits of further research in all aspects of egress.   

Averill  mentioned  that  there  will  be  a  follow‐up  workshop  that  will  be  as  inclusive  as  possible.  

There  were  many  mentions  that  this  really  is  an  international  issue  and  there  will  be  a  lot  of 
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conferences in future dealing with related issues to which this group could carry forth the findings 

of the workshop.   

Following the discussion, Peacock summarized the evaluations (the results are included in Table 1 

of  the  workshop  findings  (Section  4.0)  of  this  report).    Keeney  pointed  out  that  the  numerical 

responses were averaged based on the majority.  On  the  feasibility scale, a range was used.  That 

does not summarize everything but many of  the alternatives do have a range.  Peacock continued 

that the results varied from the bottom of the scale to the top of the scale resulting in very divergent 

results.    Those  that  were  rated  high  might  be  considered  “low  hanging  fruit”  that merits  further 

consideration.  Due to the brief time in which the evaluation was conducted, it was suggested that 

perhaps additional comments can be included after the meeting ends.  It was also mentioned that 

while some did not agree with a proposed idea, but could support something close to it. 

The floor was turned over to Keeney, who expressed his delight in the breadth, depth of knowledge, 

and experience of the participants.  He thanked everyone for their hard work and genuine interest 

in creating the alternatives.  This conference resulted in a fairly comprehensive set of objectives for 

egress  and  a  very  broad  range  of  alternatives,  he  stated.    This  happens  when  everyone  does 

individual thinking and then collective thinking. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS 

Averill  offered  concluding  remarks  which  summarized  the  workshop.    He  indicated  that  the 

workshop  had  taken  a  very  close  and  in‐depth  look  at  building  egress  and  evacuation.    The 

presentations were informative  and  enlightening.    The workshop yielded  a  comprehensive  set  of 

high‐level objectives, including the fundamental objectives, and many alternatives.   

A few key concepts were persistent themes throughout the workshop and are summarized below: 

• Information is crucial.  Gathering it.  Processing it.  Communicating it.  In an era of change, 

no aspect of building evacuation is changing faster than information.  With power, however, 

comes responsibility.  Simply because we CAN collect a piece of information, does not mean 

that we should force feed that to our emergency responders, our building managers, or our 

occupants.    It  must  be  carefully  assessed  and  presented  in  a  manner  which  incorporates 

what we know about human factors, social psychology, and situation awareness.  Above all, 

however, information must not be ignored. 

• Building evacuation procedures must be robust and adaptable.  The procedures must adapt 

to (a) changes in the event and (b) different threats and scenarios.   

• Design must make egress systems (first) obvious and intuitive and (second) integrated into 

the  everyday  use  of  the  building,  without  compromising  our  growing  desire  for  physical 

security.  Elevators may be an alternative which allows occupants in tall buildings to go out 

the way they came in, as well as provide egressibility to persons with mobility impairments, 

in the same way the ADA provided accessibility.   

• Solutions which can apply to the existing building stock as well as our new construction will 

have greater impact in terms of the number of people and lives affected.   

• Technology  should  be  harnessed  to  deliver  notification  and  induce  direct  action.    Cell 

casting,  desktop  computer  interruption,  PDA’s,  cable  television,  improved  signage,  and 

other modes should deliver reliable, timely, updated information targeted to specific people. 
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• We  need  to  ensure  accurate,  timely,  and  reliable  communications  for  firefighters.  

Firefighters need a way to communicate to the occupants and a way to obtain information 

from the occupants. 

• As a community, cost‐benefit analysis  of many  of  the alternatives needs  to be considered.  

However,  cost‐benefit  analysis  requires  a  measure  of  performance  and  an  assessment  of 

cost.  In many cases we fall short of both. 

• Finally,  evacuation  will  not  always  be  the  preferred  solution.    Protect  in  place,  phased 

evacuation,  and  areas  of  refuge may minimize  business interruption,  as  well  as minimize 

harm to occupants.  The nature of the threat will dictate the appropriate response. 

Averill then thanked the participants and NIBS staff and declared the Rethinking Egress workshop 

adjourned.  

FIGURE 3: 2008 RETHINKING EGRESS WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS
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4.0 WORKSHOP FINDINGS 

The findings of the workshop presented here are compilations of emergency egress objectives and 

alternatives identified.  The objectives listed below in boldface include all fundamental and means 

categories of objectives. The statements in regular text under the boldface objectives are responses 

provided  by individual  participants. They indicate  specific  concerns  that  should  be  considered as 

part of the corresponding objective.  

CONSOLIDATED EMERGENCY EGRESS OBJECTIVES 

Save lives

    Maximize survivors 

    Staying alive 

    Mitigate consequences of events (death, injury, stress)   

Save occupant lives

    Save lives of occupants 

Save responder lives

    Save lives of first responders 

    Minimize risk to life of external agencies required for evacuation 

    Preserve emergency responder life safety 

   

Prevent injury

Prevent occupant injury

    Minimize the harm to all people during evacuation 

    Minimize the injury level (short term) of survivors in exposed population 

    Minimize the injury level (long term) of survivors in exposed population 

Prevent responder injury

    Minimize or reduce risk of injury (short term) of external agencies 

    Minimize or reduce risk of injury (long term) of external agencies 

Minimize economic costs

  Reduce societal cost of loss of lives 

  Reduce societal cost of protecting lives 

  Reduce business cost of protecting lives 

  Ensure cost effective construction and operational costs 

  Reasonable costs – first and continuing 

  Minimize or reduce the cost in terms of disruptions caused by evacuation 

  Minimize or reduce the cost of enabling the actual evacuation 

  Use no more resources than society is willing to expend 

  Provide solutions that are cost effective 

  Decrease cost of building and variety of buildings 

  Reduce egress costs and carbon footprint 

  Maximize return 

  Decrease cost of the building 

  Prevent law suits 

Minimize property damage

  Improve first responders’ abilities to safeguard property 

  Save properties 
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  Preserve property 

Minimize impact on property operations

  Prevent loss of business 

  Minimize impact on building operations 

  Minimize negative impact on the functionality of the building 

  Allow normal functioning of building 

  Avoid unnecessary disruptive evacuations 

Reduce stress

  Minimize post traumatic stress  

  Reduce stress on occupants 

  Reduce stress on emergency staff 

  Minimize or reduce physical and mental stress on evacuees 

  Reduce panic 

  Move people without undue stress 

  Minimize possibility of panic and other destructive behaviors 

  Prevent confusion 

Reduce grief to relatives and friends

Enhance communication

  Increase confidence in message and communication system 

  Develop trust in the message and communication system 

  Allow responders to communicate effectively within building 

  Notify all occupants in structure of emergency and need to evacuate 

  Improve communication to building occupants 

  Provide the most detailed information possible to occupants 

Minimize response time

  Assure appropriate response 

Minimize evacuation time

  Reduce time 

  Minimize total egress time 

  Decrease evacuation time 

  Provide high‐capacity/short time egress 

  Enable immediate start of evacuation 

  Simplify egress process 

  Speed up building evacuation 

  Provide efficient egress system 

  Create efficient handicap egress 

  Provide equality for egress of disabled and able bodied occupants 

  Develop methods to increase speed of evacuation 

  Quickly move/guide population away from harm (smoke, fire, biological, chemical) 

  Ability to coordinate an orderly exit 

  Provide uncompromised pathways 

  Provide the earliest possible notification 

Enhance safety
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  Increase safety, irrespective of location 

  Make evacuation process safe 

  Keep occupants safe 

  Provide safe egress for all occupants 

  Provide safety for all occupants regardless of age or mobility

  Maximize life safety 

  Increase safety of community 

  Provide safety for all occupants 

  Provide safety for occupants 

  Provide safety from fire for all occupants 

  Ensure that no one is left behind 

  Ensure timely rescue of injured or ‘at risk’ occupants 

  Ability to move vast amounts of people safely 

  Move people to a safe place for a range of threats 

  Reduce fire department interference with occupants evacuating building 

  Move people to a safe place with a range of people 

  Remove people from imminent danger 

  Enhance responder safety 

  Retain flexibility to rescue other building occupants if conditions change 

  Ensure system works for different types of emergencies/threats

  Allow escape without aid of fire fighters 

  Operate during failure of city utilities (water or electricity) 

  Ensure it can be maintained 

Make people feel safe

  People feel safer 

  Enhances “sense of safety” 

  Provide a safer environment  

  Give occupants a sense of security 

  Provide occupant confidence 

  Increase confidence in message and communication system 

Maximize situation awareness

  Provide real‐time information to incident command and to occupants 

  Assess available information to enable management of occupants and staff 

  Incorporate knowledge of the specific event 

  Provide real‐time information to incident command and to occupants 

Facilitate responder access

  Enable responder access to problem area(s) 

  Provide access to fire fighting operations 

  Facilitate firefighting 

  Separate firefighting from evacuation 

  Clear building area for firefighting 

  Provide for safe and effective firefighting operations 

  Free up responders 

  Maintain uncompromised pathways 

  Allow the fire department to do their job – control the fire, prevent collapse, etc 

Improve education and training
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  Manage behavior of population to ensure safety, comfort, and security 

  Increase population’s perception of risk  

  Enhance timely occupant action in an emergency 

Improve knowledge about system

  Increase knowledge of the occupants 

Understand requirements/capabilities of population not to make situation worse, put them 

in more danger,  

  Develop a framework to evaluate solutions on a risk basis for various scenarios 

  Provide verifiable and quantifiable benefit 

  Provide solutions that stakeholders accept 

Isolate fire

  Improve fire service use of technological systems 

  Improve fire fighting to reduce egress needs 

Enhance detection  

Allow for quicker detection of the fire 

Provide easy egress procedures

  Provide a resilient and simple system 

  Reduce complexity and increase reliability 

  Obviate the need for special skills and special equipment on part of occupants 

  Ensure egress systems are as simple as possible 

  Simplify procedures 

  Ask occupants to do only things they understand 

  Ask occupants to do only things with which they are familiar 

  Reduce space set aside for emergency use alone 

  Increase dual or multi functionality 

  Flow with normal or expected human behaviour 

   
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CONSOLIDATED ALTERNATIVES TO IMPROVE EMERGENCY EGRESS 

The following list of alternatives are specific means for accomplishing one or more of the objectives 

identified in the previous section.  The groupings were prepared one evening during the workshop 

and do not represent a preferred or optimal grouping of alternatives, but simply one way to 

organize the ideas into common themes. 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING SPRINKLERS / ACTIVE SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS 

Use sprinklers and compartmentation 

Redundant water supplies 

Mandate sprinklers in all building, except residential 

Retrofit sprinklers in all high‐rise buildings 

Increase sprinkler spray design basis to suppress a full‐floor fire 

Increase sprinkler density with building height 

Improve reliability of existing building water supplies and sprinklers 

Less trade‐offs for sprinkler systems 

Increase sprinkler reliability 

Improve sprinkler system design 

Mandate sprinklers for all buildings – including residential 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING PROTECT IN PLACE / AREAS OF REFUGE  

Increase number of places of safety 

Areas of rescue assistance in stairs 

Transitional refuge areas for resting and transition to elevators in super tall buildings 

Safety zones 

Protected queuing spaces 

Zoned floors to create “safe” areas for people awaiting evacuation 

Areas of safety 

Providing areas with safe sections 

For very large, or very tall, or very complex buildings → fully protected, adequately lit, properly 

ventilated refuge spaces of adequate size and a means of two‐way communication with the 

emergency response team 

Protect in place (no egress)  

Provide alternative areas for egress assistance 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING BUILDING CONSTRUCTION CHANGES 

Lightweight innovative materials for egress paths 

Control fuel load to avoid evacuation 

Enhanced fire resistive construction for high‐rise buildings 

Reduce fuel loads in buildings  

Limit use of combustible materials 

Self‐protected buildings – sprinklers, fire/smoke resistant construction 

Prevent fires from occurring in the first place through material selection and control 

Build buildings to egress standards 
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ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING BUILDING MATERIAL CHANGES  

Protected corridors, stairways, skybridges 

Harden existing buildings 

Develop new structure external to existing buildings 

Place exit signs high and low 

Battery backup for egress lighting 

Hardened evacuation routes 

Design buildings not to collapse 

Shorten evacuation routes 

Mechanize evacuation routes (moving walkways, elevators) 

Improve quality of egress routes – finishes, natural light, view 

Adequate lighting 

Adequate width/capacity of egress 

Adequate signage 

Smoke control system with training for fire department use 

Protected exit route 

Install readily visible directional indicators at key locations

Normal and emergency movement systems should be integrated 

Egress systems designs that reflect human behavior 

Pressurized stairwell 

Effective smoke control 

Move standpipes 

Separate emergency cores 

Create horizontal and vertical compartmentation 

Use horizontal dimension for egress rather than rely on vertical 

Improve visibility of signage 

Require battery back‐up and emergency generators 

Increase use of daylight through windows and skylights 

Build‐in ergonomics to system designs 

Require separation of egress paths  

Make exits attractive, functional and normally used 

Color stairs make them more user friendly 

Alternate discharge at base of building 

Horizontal exits 

Building subdivision 

Confining smoke, heat, and fire to a small portion of the building 

Fire/smoke isolation of elevators the lobbies 

Flashing exit signs 

Require/provide manual and automated vent opening in buildings 

Provide hardened floors at intervals in tall buildings 

Durable (temp, smoke, impact) enclosure envelope 

Enhance illumination  

Ensure smoke control has an emergency power supply or that all dampers are fail safe 

Improve signage 

Provide large “fire doors” to compartmentalize large floor plans 

Prevent smoke from entering stairs 

Structure the building for dispersion (allow for evacuation without competition) 

Enhance visibility of exit signs: larger, flashing or digital signage 

Enhance paths to exits with pavement markings 
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Locate exits in generally used areas such as toilets 

Place painted or tiled lines to the exits 

Flashing or re‐designed signs 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING THE FIRE SERVICE  

Access for fire fighters independent of occupant egress 

Simple to use protective breathing apparatus 

More effective emergency responders 

Do not bring fire fighters into tall buildings 

Equipment lift for fire fighters 

Fire fighter elevators 

Robotic fire fighting equipment  

Wireless technology to monitor fire command station en route to incident 

Provide building repeaters systems for portable radio coverage with tested and maintained system 

Dedicated fire fighter ingress 

Get firefighters out of stairs 

Rapid fire service intervention 

Responder’s stairwell 

Prepositioned assets 

Separate firefighter access from occupant egress 

Increase training and education for firefighters 

Provide on‐site fire brigades for high‐occupancy buildings and complexes 

In‐house fire brigade will obviate need for outside firefighters 

Increase funding for research and development on firefighter equipment / technology 

Dedicated firefighting stairwell 

Better ventilation to support firefighting 

Adequate staffing and equipment to handle emergency 

Building conditions available at command center 

Wireless communication that can be relayed from building to command post 

Train firefighters on new technological systems 

Designated assembly areas for emergency responders 

Mandate onsite training of firefighters 

Provide reference materials in fire houses 

Real‐time building / fire data to responding fire service personnel 

Standardized, flexible system to communicate with occupants and emergency responders using 

conventional communication devices and technology 

Capability to maintain incident command from remote location 

Fighting fires from adjacent buildings 

Training of responders for occupant response 

Train fire service to operate building fire response systems 

Have a local fire company for large buildings 

Provide fire fighting vestibule at each story – outside of the stairs 

Provide air to recharge oxygen bottles for fire fighters in high‐rises 

Install a dumb waiter in stairway or elevator shaft for FF equipment (not personnel) and install a 

smaller (30”) stairway for fire fighter access 

Position fire brigades within high‐rise buildings (with occupancies greater than 10,000) that are 

trained for managing egress as well as fighting fires. These could be private or city 
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employees. Additional skills, with value to the building owner or occupants, would be 

exploited for times when no emergency was present 

Vestibules for standpipe to fight fires 

Improve fire department training 

Provide mechanical means to allow fire hose to penetrate stairwell doors while keep smoke from 

entering 

Cell phone notification to emergency responders 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING ELEVATORS  

Simultaneous use of elevators and stairs 

Use elevator or other mechanical means 

Protected elevators for disabled 

Protected elevators for evacuation of transitional refuge areas

Hardened elevators 

Protected elevator lobbies 

More aggressively educate officials, owners, and providers about the benefits of protected elevators 

Use elevators 

Provide incentives to increase elevator use 

State‐of‐the‐art‐elevators 

Training and drills in the elevators (maybe video training) 

Use of elevators for egress 

Require elevators vestibules in all buildings with elevators 

Provide equipment hoist/shaft for fire fighting equipment 

“Hardened” elevators with reliable, alternative power 

Improve elevator doors to reduce smoke stratification in buildings – may increase evacuation time 

Make use of elevators accepted by the public 

Lock out and tag out elevator power 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING SOCIETAL /REGULATORY / LEGAL CHANGES  

Don’t build high buildings 

Develop risk “scale” for building occupants 

Bill for response based on risk 

Incorporate response costs in investment, design and development cost 

Revalue sprinklers (in real costs) 

National standards for crowd management and evacuation training

Tear down tall buildings 

National high‐rise building codes that require modern egress 

Increase integration of rules such as emergency and security to reduce conflicts 

Quantitative performance criteria 

National standard for emergency action protocols 

Make occupants more fit 

Staggered density in buildings 

Provide immunity from lawsuits for research‐driven approaches 

Standardize evacuation procedures across country by emergency type 

Prevent lawsuits 

Standardize inspection program and testing 
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Limit tradeoffs 

False alarm requirements with penalty for false alarms 

Legislate immunity for performance‐based design 

Require regular testing and inspection 

Required modeled systems to be tested after installed 

Look at evacuation from an urban scale 

Develop threat strategies and evacuation strategies 

Share emergency systems with multiple buildings 

Standardize egress strategies according to type of emergency 

Annual tests of emergency systems: generators under full load, fire pumps, egress  

Restrict the heights of tall buildings 

More research money for egress studies to obtain more realistic and up to date data 

Analyze time necessary to evacuate building safely prior to spending money 

Improve public education on eating healthy to reduce obesity problem in this country  

Limit assembly occupancies at the top of buildings 

Require periodic tests of smoke control systems 

Don’t reduce the fire‐resistance of building elements when sprinklers are installed 

Ensure decision makers consider cost/benefit analysis for each alternative 

Change standards and regulations 

ALTERNATIVES EXTERNAL TO THE BUILDING  

Chutes / slides / controlled descent devices 

Horizontal egress or skybridge 

Transporters 

External evacuation devices 

Use platforms and chutes for external evacuation 

Provide skybridges to connect buildings together 

Skybridges every 5 floors – many buildings linked together 

External devices 

Horizontal / skybridges 

Use bridges between buildings to create horizontal exits 

Explore use of external evacuation systems 

Bridges to other buildings 

Connections – permanent or temporary – to adjacent buildings 

Create egress ‘lifeboats’ or escape pods 

Provide helicopter sites at all tall buildings 

Install deployable bridges in new buildings that can couple, with minor modifications, to adjacent 

existing buildings 

External devices, platform devices 

Personal egress modules for external egress 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING COMMUNICATION  

Highly motivating alarm/alert/management systems 

Communications to and from all parties 

Standard visual emergency communication system 

Emergency notification system to all occupants – phone, email, TV, satellite, public address 
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Egress communication system 

Utilize all methods of communications in an integrated network 

Earlier notification of the need to move 

Simple, effective communication 

Robust communications 

Active egress management systems 

Communicate instructions to occupants to steer the evacuation 

Design interoperable emergency communication systems amongst responders 

Design real‐time communication to maximize effectiveness 

Use technology such as cell phones, PDA’s, computers, phones for timely communication 

Two‐way communication between fire service and occupants during event 

Two‐way communication in stairwell 

Include security for fire alarm devices 

Broadcast instructions over cell phones 

Video broadcast to cellular with voice over instructions 

Use loud and intrusive communication modes (video and audio) 

Real time pictorial emergency communication system 

Multiple communication messaging systems 

Two‐way communication between fire fighters / responders and occupants 

Protect fire notification system 

State‐of‐the‐art communication systems  

Situation awareness 

Symbolic / iconic notification system for incident type and action required of occupants 

Improve pictorial representation of emergency communication (international symbols) 

Integration of communication systems into existing buildings 

Communication – two‐way between occupants and first responders 

Broadcast alarms/warnings on cell phone networks at building 

Broadcast alarms to computer networks in building 

Initiate alarm/message earlier to people – so that elevators could be used for longer 

Notify occupants via cell phone 

Universal emergency ringtone 

Use sound via cell phone to guide to exits 

Language preference for cell phone/PA announcements 

Regular announcements that include emergency egress information

Announcements in multiple languages 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING INFORMATION SYSTEMS  

Building guidance systems 

Distribute relevant information in real‐time 

Real‐time signage used on daily basis that results in high level of occupant acceptance 

Enhanced information to building occupants and management 

Intelligent alerting and response decision‐making software 

Print emergency egress instructions on the back of notepads, placemats, other locations that are 

readily available to transient occupants 

Provide multi‐lingual instructions 

Have pre‐recorded messages ready for use 

Utilize dynamic signage to provide information 

Dynamic reactive signage 
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Precise information 

Innovative means to provide information to people (cell phones, blackberries) 

Real‐time reporting of conditions 

Visualization technology 

Facilitate milling 

Better situational information 

Use public service announcements to increase perception of risk

Increase usage of icons, pictographs and signage to direct occupants 

Real time monitoring of movement in stairs 

Occupancy badge and readers so you know where people are 

Provide remote monitoring and control of large building fire systems 

Provide people with the right messages (content, style, etc) 

Real‐time information to occupants about what is going on in the building (where the smoke is, 

where others are, where firefighters are) 

Personal monitoring for people with disabilities 

Increase the elements required to be monitored 

Information should be transmitted to the responding group (fire department, etc). It should refer to 

the incident (nature, existence), procedural status, population activities, structure (exit use, 

stair, route loss, etc.) 

Multi‐modes – visual, aural; should make use of traditional notification, visual systems, PC screens, 

TVs, PDAs, cell phones, etc. 

Graphical screens could be used to maximize the information that can be provided  

Critical that information is consistent, dynamic, comprehensive and adaptive 

Live voice, provided by someone of authority 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING PRE‐EVENT PLANNING  

Common plan of action for everyone: everyone evacuates by stairs 

More effective emergency staff 

Clear evacuation plans 

Consider normal use of building 

Train staff 

Practice egress frequently 

Interact with evacuees 

Focus on one plan 

Educate and train occupants 

Emergency planning with programmed response 

Make it clear there are other hazards than fire 

Pre‐tested evacuation routes 

Occupant fire safety training 

Engage occupants during training to improve procedures 

Create a mechanism of learning about the building environment and systems that is fun 

Active management of egress process 

Make stairs part of the normal building use 

Web‐based training 

Require egress drills 

Education 

Educate and train building emergency managers  

Mandate evacuation drills for multiple scenarios 
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Communicate preplan to fire fighters and occupants 

Have preplan available during response 

Reevaluate preplan on periodic basis 

Create training courses for fire service and stakeholders 

Involve occupants in solutions for egress from buildings 

Training of building occupants related to building communication systems 

Mandatory fire drills 

Require fire drills for building occupants more often 

Require more realistic fire drills – actual movement and alarms

Require fire drills for spaces with casual users (malls, retail, bars/restaurants) 

Concise, meaningful pre‐plans not only on file but pre‐reviewed by potential incident responders 

Provide incentives for occupants to participate in evacuation drills, eg., a trophy to the work unit 

that had the most employers climb and/or descend the most number of stairs. This could be 

tied to a physical fitness program 

Train/educate/practice all procedures 

Train/educate occupants not to delay and tell them why  

Present occupants with actual simulation/videos of what could happen in a real event 

Have occupants go through firefighter training – experience a real event 

Participate development of plans and procedures/education/training → involve them in the 

process 

Conduct pilot project to demonstrate 

Exposing occupants (in a safe way) to actual fire conditions (e.g., theatrical smoke) 

Floor wardens must be people with some authority 

Subgroup managers should be incorporated into plans for assembly buildings – to lead the people 

out of the building 

Heavy training of subgroup managers 

Subgroup managers need to stay in constant communication with the emergency manager 

Causing egress via a noxious odor or intolerable sound  

Develop alternative egress plans 

ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING EFFICIENT USE OF EGRESS SYSTEM  

Enhanced stairway descent devices 

Evacuation aids for disabilities 

Photoluminescent markings 

Building wayfinding/guidance system 

Overhead rails for disabled movement systems in stairs 

Set door swing to stairs to not interrupt flow 

Disable email systems for more rapid initiation of egress 

Gravity‐driven, lightweight vehicles for mobility‐impaired individuals 

Create multi‐use emergency routes 

Equalize loads on all evacuation routes 

Motorized egress devices for people with disabilities 
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ALTERNATIVES TO ENHANCE STAIRWELL EVACUATION / REDUCE STAIRWELL LOAD  

Multiple and wide staircases 

Install tracks in stairwell handrails for trolley seats to be used by all occupants 

Use electroluminescent strips in hotels 

Recalculate stair widths 

Set doors to stairs to allow for traffic flow 

Positive pressure for stairwells 

Increase stair capacity 

Increase number of stairs 

Force stair usage in everyday activities 

Use vestibule for hose line deployment without contamination of stairwell 

Paint stairs in white paint 

Widen the stairs 

Remove fire equipment from stair towers 

Design stairs with fire fighting procedures in mind 

Positive air pressure in stairs 

Wider stairs 

Dedicated egress stairs for responders 

Develop periodic ‘rest areas’ within stair towers 

Require some level of hardening at exit (stair) enclosure 

Third stairwell for fire fighters 

ALTERNATIVES IMPACTING THE DESIGN PROCESS / RISK INFORMED PERFORMANCE‐

BASED DESIGN 

Base designs on risk assessments 

Model‐based evaluation of designs 

Standardize design basis events and performance objectives to set public policy 

Develop cost/benefit tools to deal with rare, high consequence events 

Use modeling to estimate evacuation time for buildings for different circumstances 

Consider worst‐case scenarios and build in countermeasures 

Use modeling to estimate evacuation time for buildings for different circumstances 

Use egress modeling to choose between alternative evacuation strategies in response to designated 

scenarios 

Perform engineering analysis to evaluate emergency procedures 

Improve accuracy of evacuation software 

Egress models should consider more threats than just fire 

Perform cost/benefit analysis of solutions 

Publish articles on scenarios which need to be considered 

Design for hazmat and weapons of mass destruction, including chemical detectors 

Use performance‐based criteria for all threats, more than just fires 

Develop process for creating threat scenarios and performance basis for providing alternatives 

acceptable to stakeholders 

Base design on risk and performance‐based design 

Develop an understanding of all of the events that would prompt full building evacuation 

Establish risk factors 
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ALTERNATIVES THAT ENHANCE RELIABILITY OF BUILDING SYSTEMS  

Leave power on for egress  

Low exit signs 

Regular inspections 

Coordinated systems control 

Better lighting 

Sensing systems should be fail‐safe 

Provide redundant systems 

Enhance reliability of sprinklers by electronic monitoring of flow 

Design detection systems to reject false alarms 

Constantly use systems to ensure it will work during an emergency 

Increase number of escape routes 

Backup power for evacuation components 

Electronic monitoring of all components of standpipe 

Two remote sources for sprinkler water 

Monitor all life safety systems  

Maintenance of integrity of egress paths 

Redundant passive as well as automatic protection 

Meaningful quality control before opening of the facility 

Meaningful follow‐up quality assurance throughout the life of the building at reasonable frequency 

Document, calculate, observe construction and fully accept ultimate responsibility 

Provide redundant water and electrical supply independent of city utilities 

Increase monitoring of building safety systems 

ALTERNATIVES THAT INVOLVE EVENT PROCEDURAL CHANGES  

Believable defend in place strategy 

Ensure egress is only in response to real incident 

Ensure equal use of egress routes 

Design emergency procedures effectively 

Establish evacuation procedures for disabled occupants 

Guidelines for occupant evacuation 

Stairs to refuge floors, elevators from there 

Emergency procedures manuals 

Decision support systems 

Design unique procedures for each specific type of emergency 

Allow use of “normal” elevators as long as possible 

Standardize evacuation strategies 

The use of staff in a more significant role in guiding occupants out of the building 

Better use of fire wardens – maybe they are the first ones out (follow the leader) 

Occupant procedures that actually take into account what people WILL do 

Practice egress with real event scenarios – blocked stairs, theatrical smoke, fire department in 

stairs 

If we know that milling will occur, establish groups (evacuation groups of the occupants) to 

facilitate the process (since we know that they will likely get into groups anyway) 
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ALTERNATIVES THAT ENHANCE EVENT DETECTION 

Timely notification from detector to monitoring company 

Include adequate details on type and location of the event / detector 

Use thermal imaging systems for detection 

Automatic detection should be implemented for the spaces outside a main assembly area 

Detect chemical, biological, and radiological threats 

Detect severe weather 

OTHER ALTERNATIVES 

Locator badges with counters at stairs 

Improve understanding of where people are in the building 

Motivation of people to evacuate 

Systems to motivate action 

Use egress systems on a regular basis 

More egress routes 

More building exits 

Enhanced notification systems at the local level 

Require at least one remote path of vertical egress when a central core is utilized 

Use devices to assist in compartmentalization 

Provide individual protective gear for occupants 

   
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INDIVIDUAL EVALUATIONS OF ALTERNATIVES 

The alternatives were evaluated by nine groups of three persons using three distinct criteria: 

• Usefulness:  How  good,  in  terms  of  achieving  the  fundamental  objectives  of  egress,  is  the 

alternative IF it could be effectively implemented? Use a 1 to 9 evaluation scale where 1 is 

poor and 9 is great. 

• Feasibility: What is the chance that the alternative could be effectively implemented within 

10 years? Use a percentage evaluation scale, where 0 means  there is no chance, 50 means 

there is a half chance, and 100 means that the alternative could surely be implemented. 

• Creativity: How creative or innovative is the alternative? Use a 1 to 9  evaluation scale where 

1 is a standard well‐known idea and 9 is an idea that you had not heard of before. 

The evaluation represents very quick simplistic aggregation done during a break at the workshop. 

When  there  was  general  agreement  of  the  nine  evaluation  teams,  roughly  meaning  that  the 

dispersion of estimates were less than a third of the range of the corresponding measure for at least 

eight of the teams, we used the mean response. When there was more dispersion among responses, 

we included  the  range  for  feasibility  and  two  estimates  for  each  of  the  1‐9  scales  that  represent 

mean responses for the low and the high sets of evaluations with no characterization of how many 

were in each of those groups. 

   
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TABLE 1: INDIVIDUAL EVALUATIONS OF A CROSS­SECTION OF ALTERNATIVES

Useful

(1­9)*

Feasible 

(0‐100)* 

Creative 

(1‐9)* 

Alternatives 

* Where consistent, an average is reported; otherwise a range is reported

9 20,100 2 Retrofit sprinklers in all high‐rise buildings

7 35,99 3 Transitional refuge areas for resting and or transition to

elevators in super tall buildings

1,7 5,80 3,9 Provide individual protective gear for occupants

7 50,100 3 Hardened evacuation routes

1,7 5,95 5 Mechanize evacuation routes (moving walkways, elevators)

8 75,100 2,9 Install readily visible directional indicators at key locations

8 25,100 7 Normal and emergency movement systems should be

integrated

5,8 50,80 4 Build‐in ergonomics to system designs

7 30,100 6 Alternate discharge at base of building

9 40,100 3,7 Provide hardened floors at intervals in tall buildings

8 40,100 3,7 Enhance visibility of exit signs: larger, flashing or digital signage

2,8 0,90 2,8 Locate exits in generally used areas such as toilets

1 0,10 1,9 Do not bring fire fighters into tall buildings

9 60,100 4,8 Real‐time building / fire data to responding fire service

personnel

1,7 5,90 2,7 Install a dumb waiter in stairway or elevator shaft for

firefighting equipment (not personnel) and install a smaller

(30”) stairway for fire fighter access

5,8 20,85 7 Position fire brigades within high‐rise buildings (with

occupancies greater than 10,000) that are trained for managing

egress as well as fighting fires.  

9 30,100 7 Provide mechanical means to allow fire hose to penetrate

stairwell doors while keeping smoke from entering
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9 60,90 5 Simultaneous use of elevators and stairs

1,8 0,30 2,8 Restrict the heights of tall buildings

2,7 0,60 3,8 Share emergency systems with multiple buildings

3,7 0,80 2,8 Limit assembly occupancies at the top of buildings

2,8 5,85 7 Skybridges every 5 floors – many buildings linked together

3,8 20,85 7 Install external evacuation devices, e.g., platform devices

9 75,100 7 Emergency notification system to all occupants – phone, email,

TV, satellite, public address

8 70,100 6 Two‐way communication between fire service and occupants

during event

7 40,100 4,7 Symbolic / iconic notification system for incident type and

action required of occupants

9 50,100 8 Notify occupants via cell phone

3,8 80,100 9 Use sound via cell phone to guide to exits

9 60,100 5,8 Real time monitoring of movement in stairs

8 80,100 3 Photoluminescent markings

2,7 0,80 6,9 Install tracks in stairwell handrails for trolley seats to be used by

all occupants

8 5,100 4,8 Base designs on risk assessments

7 5,90 5 Standardize design basis events and performance objectives to

set public policy

7 5,100 3,7 Use performance‐based criteria for all threats, more than just

fires

8 70,100 3 Electronic monitoring of all components of standpipe

7 10,100 2,7 Ensure equal use of egress routes

3,8 0,85 3,8 Practice egress with real event scenarios – blocked stairs,

theatrical smoke, fire department in stairs
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Staff from the National Institute of Building Sciences managed many administrative details which 

contributed to the success of the workshop.  In particular, the report was developed with the 

benefit of meticulous notes from Claret Heider and Carita Tanner. 

Other individuals made significant contributions of time and effort, which are gratefully 

acknowledged: 

• Shyam Sunder, NIST 

• Mat Heyman, NIST 

• William Grosshandler, NIST 

• Richard Bukowski, NIST 

• Erica Kuligowski, NIST 

• Barbara Faverty, NIST 

• Najib Abboud, Weidlinger Associates 

• Carl Galioto, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill 

• Clas Jacobsen, United Technologies Research Center 

• Dennis Mileti, University of Colorado – Boulder 

• Russ Sanders, National Fire Protection Association 

• Harold “Bud” Nelson, NIST (Guest Scientist) 

• The staff at the Airlie House Conference Center 

• Brad Pumphrey, EastBay Media 
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5.0 APPENDICES   
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APPENDIX A: LIST OF ATTENDEES 

Najib Abboud

Weidlinger Associates, Inc.

Jason Averill

NIST

Carl Baldassarra

Schirmer Engineering

Richard Bowers

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue

Richard Bukowski

NIST

Diane Copeland

Dillon Consulting Engineers, Inc.

Ron Cotè

National Fire Protection Association

Geoff Craighead

Securitas Security Services USA, Inc.

Michael Dillon

Dillon Consulting Engineers, Inc

Thomas Fitzpatrick

Guiliani Partners,LLC

David Frable

U.S. General Services Administration

Edwin Galea

University of Greenwich

Carl Galioto

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill LLP

William Grosshandler

NIST

Steve Gwynne

Hughes Associates, Inc.

Glenn Hedman

University of Illinois at Chicago

Claret Heider

National Institute of Building Sciences

Matthew Heyman

NIST

Clas Jacobsen

United Technologies

Keith Johnson

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue

Peter Johnson

Arup

Edwina Juillet

Consultant

Ralph Keeney

Duke University

Erica Kuligowski

NIST

Michael Lindell

Texas A&M University

Nancy McNabb

National Fire Protection Association

Dennis Mileti

University of Colorado, Boulder

Harold “Bud” Nelson

Formerly of NIST (Retired)

Jake Pauls

Jake Pauls Consulting Services in Building Use

and Safety

Richard Peacock

NIST

   
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Guylene Proulx

National Research Council – Canada

Russell Sanders

National Fire Protection Association

Jonathan Shimshoni

Escape Rescue Systems, Ltd.

Janne Sorsa

Kone Elevators, Ltd.

Carita Tanner

National Institute of Building Sciences

Keith Wen

New York City Department of Buildings

Steven Winkel

The Preview Group, Inc.

Antony Wood

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

Jerry Woolridge

Reedy Creek Improvement District

   
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APPENDIX B: RETHINKING EGRESS WORKSHOP AGENDA 

RETHINKING EGRESS WORKSHOP 

Airlie House Conference Center, 809 Airlie Road, 

Warrenton, Virginia 20187 

April 1 – 3, 2008 

This workshop has been convened by the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology (NIST). It was organized by the Multihazard Mitigation 

Council (MMC) of the National Institute of Building Science (NIBS) with 

Funding from NIST.

Tuesday, April 1

8 to 9 am  Breakfast

9 to 10 am  Welcome and Overview

10 to 11 am  Identification of Current Alternatives

11:30 am to 1 pm  Lunch Break (lunch served from noon to 1 pm)

1:30 to 5 pm  Guided Brainstorming

5 to 6 pm  Free Time 

6 to 7 pm  Pre‐dinner Social Hour (cash bar) 

7 to 8 pm  Dinner 

   

Wednesday, April 2

8 to 9 am  Breakfast

9 to 11:30 am  Alternatives from Objectives

11:30 am to 1:30 pm  Lunch Break (lunch served from noon to 1 pm)

1:30 to 5 pm  The Process of Evacuation:  More Alternatives

5 to 7 pm  Free Time 

7 pm  Dinner 

   

Thursday, April 3

8 to 9 am  Breakfast

9 to 11:30 am  Identification of Gaps and Workshop Summary

12 noon to 1 pm  Lunch served

   

Transportation to Dulles Airport will depart from Airlie House at approximately 1:30 pm. 

   
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APPENDIX C: FORMS FOR STRUCTURED BRAINSTORMING 

Name: __________________                       1

List All Ideas that You Want to Have Considered at the Workshop      

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                       2

List All of the Alternatives that You Think May Enhance Egress

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                             3

List All of the Objectives that You Think May Enhance Egress

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                      4

Create a List of All Values that You Care about Concerning Egress

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                      5

Expand Your List of Values that You Care about Concerning Egress

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                      6

Convert Each of Your Values (0n Forms 3 and 4) to Objectives (Verb and

Noun)

        Basis     Objective

     

A. ______  ___________________________________________________________________ 

B. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

C. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

D. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

E. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

F. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

G. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

H. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

I. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

J. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

K. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

L. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

M. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

N. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

O. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

P. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                     7

Create Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using Each Objective

        Basis     Alternative

A. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

B. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

C. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

D. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

E. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

F. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

G. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

H. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

I. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

J. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

K. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

L. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

M. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

N. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

O. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

P. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________                     8

Create Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using Each Collective

Objective

        Basis     Alternative

A. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

B. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

C. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

D. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

E. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

F. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

G. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

H. ______        __________________________________________________________________ 

I. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

J. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

K. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

L. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

M. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

N. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

O. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

P. ______  __________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Group Names: ________________________________________________        9

Create Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using Each Collective

Objective

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________               10

List All Components of an Effective Egress Process

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: __________________               11

List All Components of an Effective Firefighting Process

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Group Names: _________________________________________________12

List Any Additional Components of an Effective Egress Process

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Group Names: _________________________________________________13

List Any Additional Components of an Effective Firefighting Process

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: _______________               14

Create Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using Each Egress

Process Component

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Name: _______________               15

Create Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using Each Firefighting

Process Component

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Group Names: _________________________________________________16

Create and Embellish Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using

Each Egress Process Component

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

   
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Group Names: _________________________________________________17

Create and Embellish Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, Using

Each Firefighting Process Component

A. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

B. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

C. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

D. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

E. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

F. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

G. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

H. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

I. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

J. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

K. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

L. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

M. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

N. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

O. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

P. ____________________________________________________________________________ 
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Name: _______________               18

Evaluate Each of the Alternatives, or Elements of Alternatives, on Three Distinct

Criteria:

Quality: How good is the alternative IF it could be effectively implemented?

Use a 1 to 9 evaluation scale where 1 is poor and 9 is great.

Feasibility: What is the chance that the alternative could be effectively

implemented within 10 years? Use a percentage evaluation scale, where

0 means there is no chance, 50 means there is a half chance, and 100

means that the alternative could surely be implemented.

Creativity: How creative or innovative is the alternative? Use a 1 to 9

evaluation scale where 1 is a standard well­known idea and 9 is an idea

that you had not heard of before.

Quality   Feasibility   Creativity    Alternative

(1 to 9)    (percent)      (1 to 9)

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

___________      ______________        _____________         ____________________________________________________ 

   
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APPENDIX D: TECHNIQUES TO STIMULATE RECOGNITION OF VALUES 

Use a wish list: 

If you had no constraints or limitations, what would you value?

What elements constitute the “bottom line”? 

Consider pros and cons of alternatives: 

Think of a great alternative. Why is it great? 

Think of a bad alternative. Why is it bad? 

Think of any alternative. What is good about it? Bad about it? 

Now use hypothetical alternatives with the above questions. 

Imagine possible consequences: 

Think of the current situation. What is wrong with it? Right with it? 

Are there any unacceptable consequences? 

Are there any types of consequences that worry you? 

Are there possible consequences that you don’t know how to control? 

Use different perspectives: 

What would occupants of the building say matters? 

What would local politicians say mattered? 

What if the reason for egress was a biological release? 

Use constraints and guidelines: 

Consider any constraints on the process of egress. Why is this of concern? 

Consider ant guidelines. What is their purpose? 

Ask ‘why’ for each value: 

For each value on your list, consider why it matters. Their may be multiple answers each 

suggests another possible value. Repeat the process until you are not generating additional 

values. 

   
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APPENDIX E: RESULTS FROM GROUP DISCUSSION 

DAY 2: ALTERNATIVES FOR EFFECTIVE EGRESS AND FIREFIGHTING 

•  Group  1  ‐  Members  of  this  group  were  not  sure  if  they  were  correctly  differentiating 

between objectives and alternatives.  The group generally agreed that minimizing evacuation time 

was the highest priority and refined this objective to read: “Timely evacuation with minimal harm 

to occupants.”   A number of safety criteria were mentioned – for example, minimizing fatalities and 

injuries  and maintaining  building  security.   High  on  the  priority list was maximizing  the  comfort 

level  of  occupants,  be  it  physical  or  psychological.    Lower  on  the  priority  list  were  cost    and 

robustness  of  the  solution.    The  group  also  addressed  the  various  scenarios  that  can  occur  and 

noted that any solution must address the full range of scenarios. Components and routing systems 

would  need  to  be  used in as wide a  range  of  situations  as  possible and  this will  have  benefits in 

terms  of  developing  occupant  familiarity  with  the  components/systems  as  well  as  in  terms  of 

maintenance and cost if  the components/systems can  be  used in nonemergency  situations.  With 

respect to stairwells, it was noted that occupants tend to avoid them unless they use them regularly.  

Appropriate  communication/information  systems  are  very important  and  how  they  will  be  used 

can  be  treated  during  training  exercises  but  their  use  can  also  be  addressed  during  the  design 

process.   If  the design is intuitive and obvious, it will encourage people  to use certain  routes and 

become  intimately  familiar  with  them.    In  those  situations  where  occupants  are  likely  to  be 

strangers to the building, staff must be very well trained to manage the event. 

•  Group  2  ‐ The group  decided  that alternatives actually are  the  tactics  that  can  be  used  to 

achieve objectives.  Expanded and increased communication was deemed to be very important both 

prior  and  during  an  event  but  also  after  the  event.    Two‐way  communication  between  the  fire 

responders and the building occupants was identified as being of special importance. Increased use 

of elevators for emergency egress was discussed as were potential trade‐offs that might be made in 

design.      Group  members  held  varying  opinions  on  elevator  use  during  emergencies  and  it  was 

concluded  that  research  is  still  needed.    Evacuation  devices  were  also  discussed  and  additional 

research suggested.  The need for increased planning for all types of threats was addressed as was 

the need for measurable performance criteria and improved sprinkler reliability.  It was suggested 

that enhanced situation awareness be added to the list of objectives. 

•  Group  3  ‐  Group  3  discussed  many  of  the  same  issues  as  Group  2  but  emphasized  that 

evacuation is the crux of the egress problem.  For example, under what scenarios do buildings have 

to be completely evacuated and do they really need to be evacuated?  The group concluded that one 

general  way  to  address  this  issue  is  to  develop  a  process  for  creating  threat  scenarios  and 

establishing  performance  metrics  for  providing  alternatives  acceptable  to  stakeholders.    The 

scenarios  could  involve  a  security  breach,  a  massive  fire,  or  a  CBR  attack.    By  analyzing  these 

scenarios,  we  can  provide  building  designers  with  the  tools  they  need  to  meet  the  performance 

objectives  for  the building.  The next step would be  to develop a standardized but  flexible system 

for  communicating  instructions  to  occupants  and  emergency  responders  using  conventional 

communication  devices  and  technology.    Also  discussed  were  the  use  of  sky‐bridges  between 

buildings,  the  use  of  external  evacuation  systems,  maintaining  incident  command  from  a  remote 

location,  having  stairwells  discharge  directly  outside,  and  the  need  for  improved  sprinkler  and 

monitoring systems.   
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•  Group  4  ‐  This  group  concentrated  on  alternatives  for  making  people  feel  safer,  and  the 

group focused on increased use of technology.  The systems currently used require enhancement – 

that is, buildings need  to “see,” “hear,” and “talk’  to us.  The group concluded  that  the best way  to 

evacuate  a  building is  through  the  use  of  elevators  (even  though  simple  egress methods  such  as 

stairwells would still need  to be present);  therefore, all aspects of making  this possible should be 

explored.  Zone‐floors or safe areas and enhanced  fire resistance  for high‐rise buildings also were 

discussed.    Several  group members indicated  that  the  building  codes  permit  too many  trade‐offs 

when sprinkler systems are provided.   

DAY 2: PROCESSES FOR EFFECTIVE EGRESS AND FIREFIGHTING 

•  Group  1  ‐  This  group  arranged  their  presentation  by  using  distinct  time  periods  in  the 

overall  event  timeline  and  the  participant  experience  timeline:  first,  the  detection  phase  (either 

human or technological); second, the responder intervention phase; third, the decision phase; and 

fourth, the movement phase.  The group further developed a series of scenarios which could initiate 

an evacuation and then categorized the events as man‐made events, natural events, fire events, and 

security  events.    These  events  could  be  internal  or  external.    The  detection  and  process  system 

could  be  separated  into  automatic  or  assessed.    With  automatic  systems,  an  alarm  goes  off  in 

response to whatever the event might be.  With assessed systems, information is required so that 

someone can assess  the nature or  the existence of  the incident and determine what  the response 

should  be.    Generally,  the  group  determined  that  as  much  information  as  possible  should  be 

gathered either by dedicated detection systems, CCTV, or human response to a command center in 

the building, and this information needs to be conveyed directly to the fire department or other first 

responders.    This  should  provide  the  redundancy  needed  and  should  ensure  that  the  people 

responding to the incident are well informed, which should reduce subsequent investigation time.  

This information could relate  to  the incident itself,  the procedure,  the population – where  they’re 

going,  the  level  of  impairment  –  and  the  structure  itself.    The  group  envisioned  use  of  a  CCTV 

system to monitor the movement of the people in nonemergency situations.  The group discussed 

the  value  of  the  notification  system  in  both  instigating  and  informing  the  response.    The  group 

decided  that  both  visual  and  audible  communication  was  preferred  and  would  solve  issues 

involving  language  or  impairment.    Guidance  concerning  the  egress  routes  to  use  in  the  form  of 

graphic  displays  over  the  doors  indicating  whether  they  are  available  and/or  indicating  the 

availability  of  routes  and  the  direction  of  movement.    This  would  require  some  standardization 

such as coloring and pictographs used.  All systems would have to be adaptive and not hard‐wired.  

The  use  of  secondary  devices  such  as  PCs,  TVs,  cellphones,  and  PDAs  also  was  discussed;  these 

devices  could  be  interrupted  to  ensure  that  people  would  be  disengaged  from  their  normal 

activities and  received  the message.    The  nature  of  the information  passed  to  building  occupants 

needs  to  be  assertive and  the  time  of  the announcement  needs  to  be  clearly  stated  to emphasize 

that  the  event  is  real,  not  a  drill.    This  announcement  should  be  supported/reinforced  by  staff 

members.    Considerable  discussion  was  devoted  to  reducing  the  time  it  takes  to  get  people  to 

specific locations and floors.  A consensus was not reached but it was determined that staff support 

will be needed.  Accelerating the arrival of persons of authority on the critical floors was considered 

a top priority.  It also was emphasized that structures should be people‐centric – that is, designed 

around the occupants – and not just building a structure and then filling it with people.  Information 

was at the forefront of all discussions as the most critical of issue in event response.  

•  Group 2  ‐ This group  focused on  the  fire  fighting processes specific  to high‐rise buildings.  

The  first  process  discussed  was  pre‐planning  for  an  event.    Communicating  these  plans  to  the 
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occupants and staff is vital since these are the individuals that will be on site prior to arrival of the 

responders.    The  event itself  needs  to  be  anticipated.    The  code  process  needs  to  be  enforced  to 

ensure that all systems are working, thus avoiding glitches during response.  Detection, both human 

and technological, was discussed.  Many alarm systems give good information (e.g., where the alarm 

is, what type of alarm it is, how many zones are involved, and what type of detector was activated) 

but the cause of the alarm nevertheless needs to be verified.  This can be done with multi‐detection 

systems.  False alarms happen frequently and there have to be ways to deal with those (e.g., impose 

penalties for multiple false alarms).  For this group, communication was also of critical importance.  

Timely  communication  providing  adequate  details  is  important  from  the  moment  that  the 

monitoring company detects a problem.  Gathering information from the staff and occupants also is 

crucial.  Standards  for  the evacuation of a building vary  from place  to place but a building plan is 

critical.    Communication  to  the  occupants  in  a  manner  that  they  cannot  ignore  is  of  tremendous 

importance.  Some political questions also  surfaced  such as whether a  smaller community with a 

small  fire department and staff should be allowed  to build  tall buildings.  The use of elevators  for 

response  and  evacuation  purposes  was  also  discussed.    The  need for  enhanced  command  center 

information was identified (e.g., to provide real time information from the incident site about such 

things  as  temperature  on  floor  and  smoke  conditions).    It  was  noted  that  hose  deployment  in 

stairwells  is  a  continuing  problem  both  in  terms  of  blocking  the  stairwell  and  permitting 

contamination of the entire stairwell.  Needed is some way to get a fire hose with positive pressure 

through  a  door  while  allowing  the  door  to  close  so  as  to  prevent  stairwell  contamination.   With 

respect  to  ensuring  that  all  building  occupants  have left,  the  group  concluded  that  going  door  to 

door  is  still  the  only  way  to  do  it.    It  also  was  noted  that  post‐incident  information  gathering, 

analysis, and archiving – or rather the lack thereof – by the fire department has been criticized but 

little has been done to improve the situation.  

•  Group  3  ‐  This  group  addressed  “general”  buildings  where,  at  any  given  time,  a  large 

segment of the population would range in age from very young to very old and would be of widely 

diverse  backgrounds  and  ethnicity.    Retail  malls  were  considered  a  good  example  of  such 

occupancies.  In terms of emergency event, the mall is more likely than most other occupancies to 

experience  a  wide  variety  of  events  (e.g.,  fire,  criminal  activity,  terrorist  activity,  and  severe 

weather).  Communication was identified as key by  this group and participants agreed  that using 

cellphones would be a good way of notifying occupants of the event – perhaps by creating a special 

emergency  ringtone  used  only  for  emergencies  so  it  would  be  immediately  recognizable.    The 

designers  of  the malls and  the  retailers want  you  to  see  their  stores;  therefore,  the exit  signs are 

obscure.    The  visibility  of  exit  signs  needs  to  be  enhanced  as do  the  pathways  to  the  exits.    CBR 

detection should be incorporated into mall systems and severe weather should be announced over 

the PA system or using the cellphones.  Elevators need to be on emergency power so that mobility 

impaired persons can easily exit.   Risk also  needs  to be considered.  There are different  risks  for 

different  hazards  requiring  different  solutions.    In  developing  solutions,  the  risks  that  come with 

the  various  occupancies,  heights,  and  other  factors  related  to  a  specific  structure  should  be 

considered.  It was noted that the mall security staff probably would be the first ones to assess the 

situation and would be the ones to use for crowd control.   

It was asked whether current cellphone technology permits a signal to be sent to all phones and it 

was explained that cell casting permits a signal to be sent to all phones within a prescribed area at 

the same time regardless of the number.  Adaptations of this technology permit it to be directed to a 

single  building  and  some  universities  use  it  campus‐wide.    The  FCC  also  is  working  on  Cellular 

Mobile Alert Service (CMAS) standards which are now being evaluated by the industry for adoption 
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and implementation.  

•  Group  4  ‐  This  group  focused  on  assembly  buildings  and  the  behavioral  aspects  of 

emergency evacuation.  Assembly space was defined as a single large geographically complex area 

where occupants are generally aware of the egress routes because they are the same as those used 

for entry.  Some discussion was devoted to comparing the impact of an event in an assembly space 

versus a high‐rise building.  People tend to receive their information in assembly space at the same 

time rather than at separate times which often happens in high‐rises.  Assembly spaces also tend to 

have large  numbers  of  people in a  single  space and  the  need  for well  trained  crowd managers is 

paramount.  The group discussed this from an emergency planning aspect and a stadium was used 

as  an  example.    The  consensus  was  that  the  most  reasonable  approach  would  be  to  divide  the 

crowd  into  manageable  subgroups.    The  highly  trained  crowd  managers  would  be  in  constant 

contact  with  the  emergency  managers,  usually  via  radio.    The  emergency  managers  then  could 

determine what  type emergency  had  occurred and  direct  the crowd managers  to ensure  that  the 

subgroups were  directed and  shepherded  to  the  right  places. These managers  could  be  the  same 

persons  that  greet  the  people  as  they  come  in  to  the  venue.  Planning  and  training  of  the  crowd 

managers obviously would be very important, but not much time should be needed after an event 

occurs to start moving the crowd out to safety.  Community emergency plans also were discussed in 

terms  of  their  interface  with  building  emergency  plans.    Ideally,  if  management  fails,  the 

architecture will serve to move people way from the event. The group also acknowledged that there 

are different strategies for seated versus non‐seated venues. It was noted that very little attention 

has been paid to this type of occupancy in North America and that conferences on the topic would 

benefit from the participation of individuals like those attending the workshop 

   
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