A Study on the Optimized Announcement Based Evacuation Guidance Using Haas Effect

In case of an emergency such as a fire on a building and there is a need to evacuate the occupant in that building, it is important to have the guidance information effectively delivered to the evacuating occupants to guide them toward a safe direction using audio sensual media. And, it is also very important to prevent the evacuating occupants getting lost or falling astray, away from the direction toward safety. The purpose of this study, in this respect, is to examine the possible application of the precedent sound effect, with which the evacuating occupants may get a sense of the direction where the announcement comes from. With such an effect, an experiment was conducted to measure the extent to which people can hear the preceding and the following sound in terms of the acoustic pressure level changes and delay time changes, with a view to make the optimal evacuation-guidance announcement or sound. The optimal evacuation guidance sound (announcement) per each of the experimental indoors environments were as follows; 1) Regarding the optimal condition for the evacuation guidance announcement sound in the space of a lecture room, the direction of the advanced sound is positively recognized when the follow-up sound has the delaying time of 10 ms~50 ms in comparison with the advanced sound or when there is no difference between the acoustic pressures of the advanced and follow-up sounds or the acoustic pressure of the advanced sound is higher than that of the follow-up sound. 2) Regarding the optimal evacuation guidance announcement sound in the space of a hall, the advanced sound is positively recognized when the follow-up sound has the delaying time of 20 ms~60 ms in comparison with the advanced sound. 3) Regarding the optimal evacuation guidance announcement sound in the space of a gymnasium, the advanced sound is positively recognized when the follow-up sound has the delaying time of 10 ms~40 ms in comparison with the advanced sound or when the sound pressure of the advanced sound has a higher level than or the same level as that of the follow-up sound.