Perceived Crowd Safety in Large Space Buildings: The Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Perceived Risk Variables.

In crowded large space buildings, safety is one of the most important concerns for facilities managers. Within the built environment, safety has been classified into two main parts: objective safety (normative and substantive) and subjective safety (perceived). A lot of emphasis has been given to objective safety, but research has shown that subjective safety could be equally important and cannot be overlooked. A flow of risk factors within crowded large space buildings such as sports stadiums, concert halls, and religious buildings have resulted in crowd disasters in various venues across the world. Every user in such facilities during mass gathering can be exposed to safety risks, which can be mitigated by using effective risk management as a component of facilities management. This paper focused on subjective safety and aimed to validate the measurement model of latent constructs measuring 12 risk constructs of perceived safety in crowded large space buildings. Two theoretical frameworks (FIST and Six dimensions and loci of crowd disaster) and other relevant literature were used to generate items for the respective constructs. The research chose to use the Holy Mosque in Makkah as a case study (crowded large space building), which is 356,800 square metres with a maximum capacity of two million users (pilgrims). Data was collected using iPad devices via a group-administered questionnaire distributed to 1,940 pilgrims across 62 different nationalities. The data wasanalysed using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) for descriptive analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) respectively. CFA has validated the measurement model of the 12 constructs for unidimensionality, validity, and reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]