A Critical Comparison of Safe Occupancy of a Football Ground, Using the "Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds" and the buildingEXODUS Software

Tracy Ann Aarons

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Greenwich for the Degree of Master of Science by Research

October 2000

Abstract

This thesis looks at the application of the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds to the Metropolitan Police Football Club at Imber Court, Surrey and compares and contrasts its results with those produced using the computer simulation evacuation model buildingEXODUS.

The main objectives of the work are to address how the Guide applies itself to the situation and question whether the mechanisms used to obtain a safe ground capacity are valid, and to look at how the simulation model applies itself to this particular scenario to see whether its use, in this case, is relevant.

In doing this, a safe ground assessment is carried out using the Guide and, once this figure has been obtained, a series of scenarios are run, using buildingEXODUS, to see if, both qualitatively and quantitatively, comparable results can be obtained.

From the results achieved, it is seen that the element of human behaviour has considerable impact on the evacuation process and that the Guide itself does not appear to give sufficient weight to this. It is also noted that the model itself, whilst able to achieve realistic results, will only do so following careful construction, repeated reviewing of the results and adjustments to the model.