VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIMENTS ON THE IMPACT OF WAY-FINDING LIGHTING SYSTEMS ON EGRESS FROM SMOKE-FILLED RAILWAY TUNNEL

Sammanfattning: The thesis presented below presents an experimental study, performed at Lund University, Sweden, focused on the evacuation of a railway tunnel filled with smoke. The experiment is aimed at the evaluation of the efficiency of high-bright and dynamic lights located at the intersection between the tunnel walls and the sidewalk. The experiment is carried out in a Virtual Reality environment using a head mounted display. The behaviour of 60 test participants has been investigated given the presence or absence of this particular way-finding installation. The final goal of this study is to determine if the use of dynamic and flashing lights can reduce the total time needed to evacuate in an emergency situation.