A study of evacuation from large retail stores

This paper presents the results obtained from unannounced evacuations of four Marks and Spencer retail stores. By unannounced it is meant that the public and staff had no prior knowledge of the evacuations and were not informed during the evacuations by voice communication systems, The four IL tail stores participating in the study were chosen to represent three-storey city centre stores and single-storey out-of-town stores in different locations in the United Kingdom. The evacuations were video taped using in-house closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) orientated to cover pre-determined fields of view and additional portable cameras which were positioned and concealed when the stores were closed for business on the evenings before the evacuations. The evacuating customers were asked to complete a questionnaire by teams of researchers positioned outside, but not impeding, each emergency exit. Data sufficient for occupant characterisation and occupancy profiling for Marks and Spencer stores were obtained. Analysis of the video tapes also yielded information on total evacuation times and pre-movement nt times for each store. This research provided useful information, which informs the discussion in this paper of many issues relevant to the development of performance based codes, the profession and practice of fire safety engineering. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.