In order to undertake an optimisation activity on a civil project relating to a portion of a sports facility, the customer asked TECSA to carry out an assessment of the ability to escape, in the event of an emergency, from a section of the facility’s grandstands.
The study was developed using dedicated tools, in particular Pathfinder, a specialised software for simulating the evacuation of people from buildings or complex spaces during emergencies. The modelling made it possible to determine:
- The total exodus time from the portion under analysis;
- The actual routes taken by the occupants during the exodus;
- The degree of congestion of these routes and available exits;
- The speed of movement assumed by the occupants during the exodus;
- Identification of ‘bottlenecks’ that led to queues and waits near exits.
The activity required quite a lot of calculation and data processing time as the number of occupants in the stands was around 4800.
