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Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions in Aircraft Evacuation

This study examines why a disproportionate number of passengers use over-wing exits during aircraft emergencies, aiming to improve safety briefing and decision-making capabilities. The study includes a survey on passenger understanding of aircraft layouts and exit knowledge.

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Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions in Aircraft Evacuation

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  1. Follow everyone else. Where are the exits? Go to nearest exit? Are all the exits the same ? An Investigation of Passenger Exit Selection Decisions In Aircraft Evacuation Decisions Ed Galea, M. Togher and P.Lawrence Presented by Prof Ed Galea Fire Safety Engineering Group University of Greenwich http://fseg.gre.ac.uk

  2. CONTENTS • Introduction • Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey • Questions and Main Results • Conclusions and Further Work

  3. INTRODUCTION • The most common type of aircraft is the narrow body single aisle aircraft used for short haul flights (e.g. B737, A320 etc). • Analysis of survivable accidents involving narrow body aircraft with 3 exits pairs, in which at least one exit from each pair was available found over 50% of passengers used the over wing exit. • During industry standard evacuation 90 s certification trial only 28% use the over wing exit. • Why do so many passengers use the over wing exit in accidents?

  4. INTRODUCTION • The Over Wing exit: • Is the smallest exit on the aircraft, • Most difficult to utilise, • Provides the slowest flow rate

  5. Follow everyone else. Where are the exits? Go to nearest exit? Are all the exits the same ? INTRODUCTION • The aim of this study is to: • Identify level of passenger knowledge concerning aircraft exits • Use this information to suggest why a disproportionably large number of passengers use over wing exits during emergencies • Important to understand why paxs overuse these exits: • Poor exit decisions can prove fatal • Improve safety briefing • Improve decision making capabilities in agent based evacuation models such as airEXODUS

  6. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey • What do passengers really know about aircraft layouts? • A total of 488 members of public were asked to complete a questionnaire • Only 457 were considered eligible – exclude those with no flight experience. • Questionnaire took 15-20 minutes to complete. • 16 multi-part questions focussing on narrow body aircraft. • 2 pilot trials conducted prior to launching main campaign.

  7. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey 16 questions • 1-5 Establishing participants basic flying experience

  8. Public Understanding of Aircraft Evacuation Survey 1-5 contd. Establishing participants basic flying experience

  9. Questions & Main Results Q6: How many exits would you find on this kind of aircraft? Ans: Correct 78% 357 participants Wrong 22% 102 participants Correct Answer : 316 (6 exits) or 41 (8 exits)

  10. Examples of incorrect exit locations --> Questions & Main Results Q6b: Please mark the approximate exit location/locations on the diagram using crosses? Ans: All correct locations 75% Incorrect locations 25% X X X X X X

  11. Questions & Main Results 7aAre all of the exits indicated approximately the same size? Ans: CorrectDifferent sizes37% 172 participants WrongSame size63%287 participants

  12. Questions & Main Results Q 7b Please indicate on the diagram which exits are large and which are small. Ans: Correct 22% 99 participants Wrong78%360participants • Results clearly indicate poor configurational awareness of the aircraft. • Potentially a contributory factor in poor exit selection decisions made by passengers in emergency situations. L S L L L S

  13. Questions & Main Results • Frequent fliers believe they have good aircraft knowledge. • Compare survey results for sub-populations based on flying experience. • Sub-populations consist of people who have flown in • Past 12 months • Not in past 12 months • Frequent fliers – flown past 12 months • Infrequent fliers - flown past 12 months • Frequent fliers defined as those participants who have flown 5 or more return trips in past 3 years.

  14. Questions & Main Results

  15. Questions & Main Results • Just under a quarter 23% (84) of “people flown in the past 12 months” had a good understanding of aircraft layout • (number, location and relative sizes of exit pairs) • Having flown recently does not imply a better understanding of the aircraft exit layout and configuration when compared with those not flown recently. • Being a recent frequent flyer implies a significantly better understanding of the aircraft exit layout and configuration when compared with being a recent infrequent flyer. • However, only 27% of recent frequent flyers knew the number, location and relative sizes of three exit pairs.

  16. Questions & Main Results • Results of great concern as they suggest that a little more than 25% of most experienced frequent fliers understand the aircraft layout and configuration. • This inherent lack of exit knowledge is likely to have a negative impact on overall evacuation efficiency and hence passenger safety. • From a general view of passenger safety, must provide passengers with basic information concerning aircraft configuration • better briefing and better safety cards • Improving affordance of exits – e.g. through light halos • Introducing back of seat video information concerning aircraft layout and using inducements such as frequent flyer miles. • From an evacuation modelling view, results suggest that the majority of passengers (approx75%) have poor inherent exit knowledge. • Agent based decision models used to select which exit an agent may decide to use must reflect this lack of exit knowledge. • Factors such as opportunistically “seeing” an exit, following the crowd, following instructions or simply going to the nearest exit may be appropriate drivers for the majority of passengers/agents.

  17. Questions & Main Results Q8: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit A Exit B Don’t Know 72% 25% 3% A B 10 m 10 m

  18. Questions & Main Results Q9: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit A Exit B Don’t Know 68%23% 9% A B

  19. Questions & Main Results • Additional information concerning exit sizes provided to participant • The questions concerning preferred exit usage where re-administered. Large Small Large

  20. Questions & Main Results Q13: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit L Exit S Don’t Know 90% 7% 3% (+22%) (-16%) (-6%) L s

  21. Questions & Main Results • Q14 Participants were then asked to make an estimate concerning approx time required to pass through the small exit. • A quarter of the entire population (26% or 119 participants) thought that the smaller exit would allow them to pass through in approximately the same amount of time or quicker than the larger exit. • This result appears to be independent of flyer experience. S = ? sec L = 1 sec

  22. Questions & Main Results • Additional information concerning exit flow rates provided to participant • The questions concerning preferred exit usage where re-administered. S = 2 sec L = 1 sec L = 1 sec

  23. Questions & Main Results Q16: Which exit would you choose in an emergency? Exit L Exit S Don’t Know 93% 5% 2% (+25%) (-18%) (-7%) L s

  24. Questions & Main Results

  25. Questions & Main Results • Before providing information to participants, on average, 39% (361) of entire population (459) would choose to use the centrally located smaller over wing exit rather than the larger forward /rear exits even when faced with a queue. • 39% • Being a recent frequent flyer (most experienced flyer), does not statistically alter this decision. • When provided with complete exit information, only 7% (32) of entire population (459) choose the smaller over wing exit. 7% ( - 32% difference) • Given sufficient information, travelling public can make sensible exiting decisions

  26. Conclusions & Further Work • Findings support hypothesis that poor understanding of cabin layout is a contributory factor to sub-optimal exit selection decisions made by passengers in emergency situations. • Results demonstrate that providing additional information concerning size and flow capabilities of exits greatly improves exit selection decisions - even for apparently knowledgeable participants. • Even providing information simply related to the relative size of the exits significantly improves exit selection capabilities. • Observations support the view that improving the nature of the pre-flight briefing, the affordance of exits and the safety cards provided on aircraft can improve evacuation efficiency. • For evacuation modelling perspective, these results suggest that as many as 39% of passengers will make sub-optimalexit selection decisions. • It is suggested that these poor exit decisions are due to poor understanding of the exit layout and performance capabilities. • These factors should be taken into consideration when developing agent decision models concerned with exit selection.

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