Dotsenko O. Improvement of the calculation method for determining the duration of evacuation of people in shopping and entertainment centers taking into account the presence of people with reduced mobility of different groups

Evacuating people with different mobility levels is an important aspect of emergency planning and coordination. Ensuring effective and safe evacuation for people with reduced mobility, children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups requires specialised strategies and solutions. In today's world, when we face a variety of threats, from natural disasters to terrorist attacks, an effective methodology for evacuating a mixed flow of people with different levels of mobility is crucial to ensuring safety and minimising loss of life. Ensuring safety through evacuation in the event of a fire is one of the most important tasks. But unfortunately, in this context, the level of inclusion is still very low compared to EU countries, which indicates that the trend of active development will continue in the future. Due to the war, inclusion has become a pressing issue for our country as never before, so its implementation raises many problems, including fire safety measures. Currently, DSTU 8828:2019 Fire safety. General Provisions is the main document for calculating evacuation times, but it does not contain sufficient guidance for calculations, given the different configurations of people flows with people of different mobility groups in them, while in real situations we are dealing with a different percentage of people of different mobility groups or non-mobile people who cannot move without assistance. The document does not contain the necessary recommendations for such situations, in particular for medical institutions and other facilities with a large number of people where there are people with limited mobility. Thus, researching problematic aspects and identifying ways to ensure protection and support for people with different mobility groups, which will contribute to the creation of a society with equal opportunities, is an important and urgent task for improving the quality of life. The idea of the work is to improve the methodology for calculating the time for evacuating people from shopping malls, taking into account the presence of people with limited mobility of different groups, including those with a variable percentage. The study is aimed at analysing and revealing the impact of these factors on the evacuation process during a fire, which will allow for the development of more accurate and effective strategies in the event of an emergency. The study involves the experimental determination of the dependencies between the speed of the human flow and its density in different configurations, as well as the modelling of these processes to optimise evacuation strategies. The purpose of the work is to reveal the regularities of human flow in a shopping mall consisting of people of different mobility groups, depending on the density and percentage of people with low mobility, as a scientific basis for improving the methodology for determining the estimated time for evacuating people from the premises of buildings and structures in case of fire. Objectives of the study: − to analyse the current development of shopping malls in Ukraine and abroad, identify problems related to the regulation of fire safety requirements for evacuation routes and exits in shopping malls and consider possible ways to solve them; − to conduct field observations in real conditions of the shopping mall to obtain and analyse data on the behaviour of people during evacuation, the movement of mixed human flows, including people of M4 mobility groups and their rescue from fire-safe zones by fire and rescue units; − to study the evacuation of people of different mobility groups (M1, M3, M4) in order to form empirical databases and determine the dependence of the speed of the mixed human flow on the density and percentage of participants of mobility groups M1, M3, M4; − - to simulate experimental studies of evacuation of people of different mobility groups M1, M3 and M4 using software; − to conduct a numerical experiment to assess the impact of density (D), the proportion of participants using supports (crutches) (M3), and the proportion of participants using wheelchairs (M4) on the speed of the human flow and develop proposals for improving the methodology for determining the estimated time for evacuating people from the premises of buildings and structures in case of fire; − to develop recommendations for conducting training evacuations from shopping malls aimed at improving the efficiency of the evacuation process in the presence of people with limited mobility. The object of the study is the process of evacuation during a fire of a mixed human flow, including participants of different mobility groups from shopping and entertainment centres. The subject of the study is to improve the calculation method for determining the duration of evacuation of people in shopping and entertainment centres, taking into account the presence of people with limited mobility of different groups.