Stair evacuation of older adults and people with mobility impairments

• We collected evacuation data from 45 residents evacuating a six-story assisted-living facility.
• We present average and local speeds on stairs for people with disabilities and older adults.
• We present movement data on the use of stair descent devices during stair evacuation.
• We compare our results with results from 6 studies of stair movement with similar populations.

This paper presents the movement speeds and behavioral data for 45 residents evacuating a six-story assisted-living facility located on the East Coast of the United States. The building's population comprised of a diverse array of older adults and disabled residents descending the stairwells by the following methods: self-evacuation without assistance, assistance using a cane, assistance from another occupant or firefighter, or assistance using a stair chair. Movement data of these specific groups was compared and contrasted with other data collected on mobility-impaired individuals. In the current study, the National Institute of Standards and Technology observed overall average speeds ranging between (0.11 to 0.29) m/s, which in some cases, approximate the speeds of disabled people and older adults found in earlier studies, and in other cases is slower than previous studies. Slower speeds in this case may have resulted from observing a wider variety of mobility impairments (since the building observed was an assisted-living facility) and evacuation assistance provided by untrained populations. These data provide an adequate confirmation of exiting literature values typically used for disabled movement speeds in addition to updated values for future analyses.