Dynamic Escape Signs for Safe Egress in School Shooter Situation

Abstract

School shooter situations can be a terrifying time for all involved. It is important that, if the situation occurs, there is a smart, efficient system in place to move each classroom to safety as quickly as possible. Methods like Run, Hide, Fight do not tell the civilians where to run, and messaging systems that attempt this are often thwarted by the shooter’s movement. A dynamic system is needed to track the shooter’s location and communicate to people how to best escape. Dynamic escape signs have been useful for improving trust and egress time during a fire. Similar smart signs could be used to respond to the shooter, updating to show safe egress routes, as well as shut down certain hallways when the shooter is within line of sight. This method has been implemented within a Unity virtual reality environment and will be tested in the future to validate its usefulness.

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