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Funded under the EU Framework 7 Security Programme, BeSeCu (Behaviour, Security, Culture) is a large cross-cultural study of people’s behaviour in emergency evacuation situations. As part of the project, the BeSeCu international consortium will conduct questionnaire surveys and interviews with people from across Europe who have been involved in and affected by fires, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In addition, the group will conduct a range of full-scale building evacuations in three different European countries. These experimental building evacuations will be used to explore the impact of culture on evacuation behaviour. BeSeCu’s findings will be used to better tailor emergency procedures and communications and improve evacuation modelling tools which are used around the world in the design of buildings. As a result, public safety in buildings, transport systems and other structures around the world will be enhanced. The project consortium is lead by Institute of
Psychology, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald and the
experimental component of the project is lead by
Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG)
at the University of Greenwich. Funded by the EU Seventh Framework
Programme of security research, BeSeCu
(project no. 218324) has a budget of €2.1 million and will run from 2008
to 2011. The consortium partners include: Institute of Psychology, Ernst
Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (GERMANY);
Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG)
at the University of Greenwich (UK); the University Medical Centre of
Hamburg, Institute of Medical Psychology (GERMANY);
Institute
of Public Security of Catalunya (SPAIN);
Hamburg Fire and Emergency Service Academy (GERMANY);
Man-Technology-Organisation Psychology (SWEDEN);
Faculty of
Fire Safety Engineering, The Main School of Fire Service
(POLAND);
Prague Psychiatric Centre,
University of Prague (CZECH REPUBLIC); and Association of
Emergency Ambulance Physicians (TURKEY). |
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| Project Methodology and Objectives |
How do members of the public and emergency service personnel think, feel
and behave when faced with an emergency? Does this behaviour vary across
nations and ethnic groups? Moreover, what type of procedures and
communications take place to help people evacuate to safety when an
emergency occurs? With the rise of global terrorism and natural
disasters such as floods, and the continuing occurrence of accidental
and deliberate fires, cross-cultural research into emergency evacuations
is both timely and necessary. To understand how people react when
disaster strikes and whether current emergency operating procedures and
communications can be followed effectively, the BeSeCu team will employ
two methods: 1. Questionnaires and Interviews: Each BeSeCu partner will survey people in their country who have been affected by a several types of real emergency drawn from four categories: a serious domestic fire; a fire in a public building; a natural disaster; a terrorist attack. Participants sought are persons who survived such emergencies (e.g. residents, staff, commuters, hospital patients) and fire fighters who provided an emergency response at the scenes. Much can be learned from these people’s experiences and observations. 2. Experimental evacuation trials: Unannounced evacuation experiments conducted in public buildings will be conducted in several countries. Observations and questionnaire data will be analysed to identify similarities and differences in occupant response behaviour such as; how people interpret the notification cues, how long it takes people to begin and end the response phase, what type of actions are conducted during the response phase, how many actions are conducted during the response phase, etc The above methods will provide the following: (i) an evidence base of inter-individual differences in people’s behaviour (thoughts, feelings, actions) that will be employed to improve communication in emergency interventions; and (ii) an evidence base that will enable designers of buildings to develop culturally-appropriate emergency operating procedures. FSEG's involvement in the project includes running the UK questionnaires and interviews as well as managing and running the experimental programme across three European countries. |
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| Appeal for participants |
FSEG are looking for people in the UK to complete an in depth
questionnaire or interview. We invite you to take part in our research
if you are a firefighter or if you have survived a…
b) Fire in a hospital or hotel: If since January 2000
you have experienced a fire whilst in a hospital or hotel that required
the emergency services to be called out and the building to be
evacuated, we would value your participation in our study. For example,
we invite people who were patients (out patients or bed patients) or
staff at the Royal Marsden Hospital, West London or guests at the
Penhallow Hotel, Newquay during the fires of 2007 and 2008 respectively
to tell us your story. |
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Project Partners |
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| Further Information | Prof. Ed Galea Fire Safety Engineering Group University of Greenwich Greenwich Maritime Campus Old Royal Naval College Queen Mary Building Greenwich SE10 9LS UK Tel: +44 (020) 8331 8730 |
