An Innovative Evacuation System for Multiplex Cinemas

This paper addresses the organizational, training, awareness, behavioral, procedural as well as the technological issues related with an innovative evacuation system for Village Road show Company in Athens Greece. The paper depicts the requirements needed for this case study system to ensure proper and safe evacuation plan for the public in a multiplex cinema. A well designed evacuation system should produce clear optical directional signaling in order to guide the audience towards the assigned exit doors and routes in case of an emergency. Statistical data show, with respect to audience behavioral movements, that the strong majority of all audience in an emergency prefers to follow the previous entry routes rather than the indicated exit ones. In such a case serious injury probability occurs with the conflicting routing of entering and exiting audience. The system responds significantly to the aforementioned risk, ensuring the integrity, and safety of both people involved and infrastructure. It is not to be neglected an 5 % of all audiences refusing to move in an emergency process, and the proper system should motivate them towards the proper direction. The paper discusses the procedures deployed for the operation and support of the system involving the human resource factors in terms of training, monitoring and control. As critical factor emerges the need for immediate response of the system partially or totally in the multiplex as far as Decision making process is concerned. The paper analyses and answers to the plethora of emergency risks imposed in a multiplex cinema (fire, earthquake, bomb threat, hostage situation etc.) and the different related types of evacuation process should be followed respectively. It assesses and forecasts the impact of an evacuation failure both to the company continuity as well as the specific damages to be caused. The case study includes a software simulation of different evacuation situations regarding different audience presence in the multiplex. Conclusively the paper focuses on the specific attributes an evacuation system for multiplexes should respect and ensure such as accuracy, verifiability, accountability, security and quality assurance in relation to the relevant international standards in force such as ISO.