Joyce, Michael S., Lawrence, Peter J. ORCID: 0000-0002-0269-0231 and Galea, Edwin R. ORCID: 0000-0002-0001-6665 (2020) Hospital evacuation planning tool for assistance devices (HEPTAD). Fire and Materials, 45 (4). pp. 564-582. ISSN 0308-0501 (Print), 1099-1018 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/fam.2856)

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Abstract

A new software tool, called HEPTAD (Hospital Evacuation Planning Tool for Assistance Devices), designed to aid evacuation planning in hospitals is described and demonstrated in this paper. The software can identify regions within a hospital geometry that are inappropriate for patients who require the use of specific movement assistance devices in the event of an emergency evacuation. Using the software, Hospital Emergency Coordinators can reduce the risk of allocating a bed to a patient from which they cannot be evacuated within a safe time. In addition, HEPTAD is designed to be a proof of concept for algorithms that will later be incorporated within the EXODUS egress model. HEPTAD utilises several techniques from autonomous robotics to generate the fastest viable egress route for movement assistance devices from every location in the geometry while considering device spatial constraints (size and shape) and kinematic constraints (maximum speeds, turning radius and holonomicity). It then uses the egress time of this route along with factors from space syntax (isovist and spaciousness) to analyse the emergency vulnerability of every location within the geometry.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Authors. Fire and Materials published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	assistance devices, configuration space, evacuation simulation, hospital evacuation, people with reduced mobility, viable routes
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science Faculty of Engineering & Science > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis (CNMPA) Faculty of Engineering & Science > Centre for Numerical Modelling & Process Analysis (CNMPA) > Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) Faculty of Engineering & Science > School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences (CMS)
Last Modified:	23 May 2022 10:09
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/28135

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