A review of methods used for estimating passenger train evacuation time

When a new rail system is developed or an existing system is significantly updated, designers and operators are confronted with the challenge of proving in some manner that their concepts or modifications are safe and that the occupants will be able to instantly escape to a safe refuge in a fire situation. Four approaches can be adopted to achieve this goal: Prescriptive train evacuation requirements, hand calculations, experimental fire drills and evacuation computer models. While several review papers have been published in recent years dedicated to fire evacuation from buildings, the literature review revealed only a few studies that put particular attention on passenger train evacuation. Furthermore, no study has been conducted that covers all of the methods used to estimate emergency evacuation times for rolling stock, as well as the benefits and limitations of each method. Hence, the importance of this present paper. Firstly, this research presents an overview of the major definitions of the different components of evacuation time. Then, a review of recent literature on the research methods used for evacuation time calculations. Finally, the limits of each approach are discussed in this paper. Toward the end of this contribution, we highlighted some suggestions for further research.