Behaviors and Causal Explanations of Road-Tunnel Users During a Fire

Abstract

The present study was aimed at describing the behaviors of tunnel users in the event of a road-tunnel fire,and to determine the effect of stress on these behaviors. Another aim was to identify the causal explanationsoffered by tunnel users for fires and for non-evacuation behaviors after a fire alarm is given. Several fire scenarioswere presented to 217 participants, who were asked to predict their likely behavior in the situations described,and to give explanations for the fire's occurrence. The participants' perceived stress level was also measured usinga subscale taken from the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS; Lovibond, & Lovibond, 1995). The resultsshowed that the participants tended to adopt more risky behaviors in situations where traffic was moving freelythan in congested traffic. The users' perceived stress led them to adopt unsafe behaviors, but contrary to Hennessyand Wiesenthal's (1997) results, this relationship was stronger in free-flowing traffic than in a traffic jam. Someof the participants demonstrated a certain behavioral rigidity, tending to adopt identical behaviors regardless ofthe traffic situation. The behaviors stated for a given situation seem to be consistent, but they were not alwayssafety-conscious. And the more serious the fire, the more internal the explanations were. Finally, non-evacuationbehaviors were attributed mainly to internal factors that implicated the concerned individuals. Some suggestionsfor long-term preventive actions based on users' beliefs and representations are proposed

What Is the Knowledge of Evacuation Procedures in Road Tunnels? Survey Results of Users in Poland

“…On the basis of their broad analysis, they identified several equations for various categories of evacuated users, as well as for different situations. In their paper, Kouabenan et al [29] studied the responses of tunnel users to various road tunnel fire scenarios. A group of 217 individuals, students at a French university, were asked to describe their reactions to various fire scenarios, taking into account their stress levels.…”

“…The questionnaire includes a number of questions designed to verify whether respondents know the principles of safe tunnel use, are able to correctly evaluate various emergency situations, and are aware of tunnel risks, as well as to identify any gaps in their knowledge and to assess behavioral factors in various situations. The survey was prepared on the basis of previous similar studies [8,20,21,29,[33][34][35][36][37]. The present survey incorporates safety instructions for road tunnels in Poland [18,19], but it concerns general safety recommendations and rules.…”

“…Furthermore, social influence, which is important in the evacuation process, could not be taken into consideration. It should be emphasized that despite the indicated imperfections, this type of approach is the only way to cover a larger number of road users, and is widely used in safety research [15,21,22,29].…”