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Rapid evacuation from large buildings is challenging due to their complex layout making wayfinding difficult. While emergency signage is widely used to aid wayfinding, recent research demonstrates that only 38% of people perceive conventional exit signs. Furthermore, conventional signage only conveys single and passive information and so cannot adapt to changing conditions. The EU FP7 GETAWAY project addresses this problem through the development of a unique and innovative Intelligent Active Dynamic Signage System (IADSS), which routes occupants to their optimal exits during an evolving incident. This paper presents two key steps in the development of the IADSS concept. First, a novel negated signage concept identifying that an exit route is no longer viable was devised and tested using an international survey. The results demonstrate that the negation concept can be clearly understood by over 90% of the sample. The second step involved two full-scale evacuation trials in a rail station that demonstrated that it was possible to direct over 60% of the participants to the targeted exit through the use of the Active Dynamic Signage System (ADSS). The ADSS makes use of the negated signage concept and a development involving a green flashing arrow within the standard emergency exit sign.

Efficient evacuation from transport terminals in an emergency can be constrained by the complex nature of the buildings. Although emergency signage systems are widely used as a well established means of facilitating evacuation, recent research demonstrates that only 38% of people 'see' conventional static emergency signage in simulated emergency situations. Besides, conventional signage only conveys single and passive information; therefore, they cannot be adapted to respond to developing evacuation situations. The EU FP7 GETWAY project addresses this problem for transport terminals through the development of an Intelligent Active Dynamic Signage System (IADSS), which routes terminal passengers to their optimal exit according to the distribution of occupants and the nature of the evolving incident. This paper presents the results of two full scale evacuation trials conducted in a rail station to establish the specific benefits of the Active Dynamic Signage System (i.e. ADSS, a subsystem of the IADSS without the intelligent component) over the current standard emergency signage system. These trials demonstrate that the flashing lights of the ADSS do have a greater effect on route choice compared to the standard signage system and therefore are more likely to promote the adoption of emergency evacuation procedures than would otherwise be the case, especially where evacuees are required to adopt routes not entirely based on proximity.

This paper describes research that was carried-out under the EU FP7 research project SAFEGUARD and presents passenger response time data generated from five full-scale semi-unannounced assembly trials at sea. The data-sets were generated from three different types of passenger ships, a RO-PAX ferry without cabins (RP1), a cruise ship (CS) and a RO-PAX ferry with cabins (RP2). In total, response times from 2366 people were collected making it the largest response time data-set ever collected – on land or sea. The analysis methodology used to extract the response time data and the resultant response time distributions (RTD) is presented. A number of key findings from the data analysis are presented along with three recommendations to modify the IMO guidelines governing ship evacuation analysis, namely; (a) it is inappropriate to use the same RTD for cruise ships and RO-PAX vessels; (b) a new Day Case RTD is suggested for RO-PAX vessels and (c) new Day and Night RTDs are suggested for cruise ships.