Design Improvements for School Bus Emergency Evacuation Systems

Abstract

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to: (1) Evaluate a rear emergency door intervention designed to improved passenger flow rate during evacuation. Two school bus mock up test fixtures were fabricated representing a bus rolled over on the left side: one equipped with a current rear emergency door hold-open device design, and the other equipped with an improved device design. The experiment compared the performance of each device by observing and analyzing the ease of egress for participants by measuring time to exit the door in each fixture; (2) Evaluate a emergency roof hatch intervention designed to improved passenger flow rate during evacuation. Two school bus mock up test fixtures were fabricated representing a bus rolled over onto its side: One equipped with a current roof hatch design, and the other equipped with an improved roof hatch design. The experiment compared the performance of each device by observing and analyzing the ease of egress for participants by measuring time to exit the hatch in each fixture; and (3) Evaluate the accuracy of RFID versus video as a way of tracking and recording the egress of student during required school bus evacuation drills conducted in each state. The testing for experiments 1 and 2 were completed with 139 participants from grades 1, 4, 7, and 10. The supporting school was Goshen Elementary School, in Goshen, Alabama. These experiments revealed a significant improvement in passenger evacuation flow rate for improved rear emergency door hold-open device and improved roof hatch tested. The RFID experiment verified that RFID could be used to track students during evacuation training exercises.