Using virtual reality to study the effect of information redundancy on evacuation effectiveness

The International Organization for Standardization evacuation alarm (ISO 8201: 2017) is ineffective in initiating evacuation, particularly when people are engaged pre-evacuation activities, and it not easy to conduct experiments evaluating behavior due ethical cost issues. A virtual building emergency where alarms went off while participants were performing activities was created study the effect of redundancy on effectiveness. Three studied: (i) a regular nonverbal ISO alarm, (ii) speech-inserted (iii) technology-based concept (sound, visual, haptic information). Evacuation behavior, perceived urgency, delay time measured. Results confirmed measurements, complied better with alarms, but there no differences effectiveness between them. Participants higher urgency from solution, which can be more adaptive complicated environments background noise language/education barriers problems. Otherwise, cost-effective.