Emergency lighting, escape route lighting and wayfinding in clear environments

Blind or partially sighted people find it very difficult to access many public buildings, which suggests that they may also find them equally as difficult to escape from.

In emergency escape situations, there is a need to maximise the search and navigation skills of visually impaired people along escape routes and there are now a variety of alternative wayfinding systems available which may do this, including, for example, photoluminescent marking. However, research into the effectiveness of both conventional lighting luminaires and these alternative forms had, until this project, only involved observing and analysing the performance of fully sighted people.

Emergency lighting, escape route lighting and wayfinding in smoke filled environments

This research project determined the performance in a smoky interior of normally sighted and visually impaired subjects. It extended earlier work in emergency lighting and visual impairment undertaken by Keith Bright and his colleagues by addressing the need to consider how the presence of smoke in an escape route affects the performance of visually impaired and non-visually impaired people when egressing a building.