SiME - New Project in Civil Security
In order to help disabled people gain easier access, many buildings, e.g. sheltered workshops, as well as other venues are now accessible barrier-free. But how can such places be evacuated effectively if disabled people are involved? How can stakeholders be trained, evacuation plans be adjusted, and facilities be designed to make these sites safer? To answer these questions the joint project "Safety for people with physical, mental or age-related disabilities" (SiME) has been funded in the context of the "Research Programme for Civil Security" by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for three years since the beginning of February 2016. The project is coordinated by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). Other partners are Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Hochschule Niederrhein, Werkstatt Lebenshilfe, PTV Transport Consult GmbH, and Forschungszentrum Jülich.
The simulation of the process of evacuating a building enables bottlenecks to be identified and the evacuation time calculated. For this purpose, parameters of the realistic movement of persons involved are needed, but such data are as yet only available for people with unrestricted mobility. In SiME, the team from JSC will execute parameter studies for mixed traffic, i.e. for people with and without disabilities, and also analyse the process of movement of disabled people, e.g. transfer from a wheelchair to an evacuation chair, during an evacuation process. With the collected data, more reliable models should be obtained to also simulate the evacuation of sheltered workshops or homes for people with disabilities.
(Contact: Stefan Holl)
JSC News, 24 February 2016