Browsing by Author "Dias C"

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    Exploring home-to-school trip mode choices in Kandy, Sri Lanka
    (1/02/2022) Dias C; Abdullah M; Lovreglio R; Sachchithanantham S; Rekatheeban M; Sathyaprasad IMS
    Schools are major trip generators in urban areas and school trips may largely contribute to the congestion, particularly during morning peak hours. This study investigates the home-to-school trip mode choices in Kandy city, which is a major city in Sri Lanka. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey distributed among junior, lower senior, and upper senior students of ten major schools located in Kandy city in 2015. School trip mode choices, that comprise several common travel modes in Sri Lanka, i.e., walking, public bus, school bus, school van, private vehicles (car or van), motorcycle, and three-wheeler, were modeled using multinomial logit and mixed logit frameworks. The results indicated that gender, age, household income, school type and distance play a significant role in determining the school transport mode. That is, male students were more likely to choose public buses, walking, and private vehicles relative to other transport (three-wheeler and motorcycle combined) as compared to female students. Further, older students were more likely to walk, take a school bus and public bus relative to other transport when compared to the younger students. Distance to school was found to significantly affect all the school transport modes. National or Provincial school students were more likely to use a school bus and less likely to use a private vehicle. Transport planners and policymakers could use the outcomes of this study, especially to implement congestion mitigation measures in city centers during morning peaks. Besides, some aspects of this study could be used to regulate and legalize some private transport modes, e.g., privately operated school vans, to provide a safer, reliable, and economical service to school-going children.
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    Investigating office buildings evacuations using unannounced fire drills: The case study of CERN, Switzerland
    (2021-10-01) Rahouti A; Lovreglio R; Dias C; Kuligowski E; Gai G; La Mendola S
    The main objective of this paper is to explore evacuees’ behaviour during an unannounced fire drill using data collected in two office buildings located at CERN, in Switzerland. Overall, a total of 142 pre-evacuation time measurements, 121 evacuee walking speed measurements in staircase configurations, and 336 evacuee walking speed measurements on floor configurations are included in the dataset. These data were compared with the existing evacuation data for office buildings. This comparison revealed that the pre-evacuation times measured in the present study are significantly lower compared to existing data from the literature for the same type of occupancy. Walking speed data collected in corridors in the present study is within the range of the values reported in previous studies. Further, walking speeds on descending stairways measured in the present study were significantly higher than those available in the literature. However, the novel dataset presented in this study is in accordance with the values recommended in well-known guidelines (such as the SFPE Handbook) and could be used in the future to simulate evacuations of office buildings.