Evacuation Lifts and Refuge Areas to Facilitate Building Evacuation: A Scoping Review on Behavioural Aspects

Abstract As more buildings around the world are becoming accessible, the question of egressibility, i.e., accessible evacuation, is important to assess. To achieve egressibility for people who are unable to use the stairs, areas of refuge or occupant evacuation elevators are the two dominant evacuation strategies identified in previous research. A key challenge with these strategies is that they require certain behaviours from the evacuees to be successful. Thus, the aim of this scoping review is to summarise and analyse the research performed within the area, with a focus on the behavioural aspects, in order to identify gaps in the knowledge and provide a foundation for further research. Over 5,000 papers were screened, and a total of 34 papers were selected for in-depth analysis. The review concludes that behavioural aspects related to areas of refuge have not been given much research attention, and the few studies published are based on evaluation of hypothetical scenarios. Evacuation elevators have received more research attention, but the majority of the studies published involve hypothetical scenarios. Hypothetical scenario experiments, sometimes called behavioural intent experiments, can be argued to have low validity. Thus, this review highlights the need for further research on behavioural aspects and design of systems that support the use of both evacuation elevators and areas of refuge. It also highlights that where the preferred methodologies of field or case studies are not readily available to fill the knowledge gap, the use of laboratory and VR methodologies, particularly where they gather perspectives from intended end users, have significant potential to progress understanding on how the use of areas of refuge and occupant evacuation elevators can contribute to egressibility.