Two new studies illustrate the urgency of developing better building evacuation schemes following the World Trade Center attack and The Station nightclub fire.

In one, a University of Rhode Island researcher has received $470,000 from the National Science Foundation to study issues involved in evacuating people quickly and safely from public structures.

“Research into pedestrian flows in and around buildings has been neglected, and while there are a few models out there currently in use, our research will for the first time factor human behavior into the model,” said Natacha Thomas, assistant professor of civil engineering.

Using T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I., as an example, Thomas and colleagues from URI and the University of Delaware Disaster Center plan to simulate the movement of pedestrians in an emergency. They also will simulate changes in the physical structure and management policies and communications, that may affect evacuation speed.

“We'll simulate different hazards, and then we should be able to predict how, for instance, adding another door or changing a warning message would aid people in getting out,” Thomas said.

In another effort, more than 2,000 survivors of the World Trade Center disaster will be interviewed by British scientists in what is believed to be the largest project ever undertaken to study evacuation of high-rise buildings.

The research team, from the Universities of Greenwich, Liverpool and Ulster, have been awarded a £1.6 million grant by the U.K.'s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to study such factors as whether survivors began evacuation immediately or continued to work; the urgency with which the evacuation took place; the realization that they were in danger; and whether survivors formed groups.

The project, called High-rise Evacuation Evaluation Database, or HEED, is due to start this fall.

“Their individual and collective experiences could significantly influence the next generation of performance-based building codes and high-rise building designs,” said Professor Ed Galea, of the University of Greenwich's Fire Safety Engineering Group.