Evacuation dynamics of children: Walking speeds, flows through doors in daycare centers

The purpose of this study is to deliver new data and to bring attention to the subject of evacuation of children. Evacuation characteristics such as flow, densities and walking speeds are in focus. Currently literature on evacuation com-prehends mostly studies on adults. Ten Danish daycare centers participated in full scale evacuation experiments where the age groups 0-2 years and 3-6 years were analyzed separately. The work had the following overall finding. Flows through doors, walking speeds and densities are age-dependent and differ strongly from the data in existing literature. The results show higher walking speeds in spiral stairs when the children are familiar with the evacuation path. Higher per-son densities and faster flow through doors were obtained among the children than found in literature on adults. Children in the younger age group are generally slower than the older children. The children walk slower in horizontal plan than adults, however they are keen to run during evacuations, in the latter case their travel speed increases and exceeds the adults’. Since the evacuation characte-ristics of children differ in many ways from those of adults, nowadays models badly comprehend children.