It does sound a long time and I believe that this would require some investigation. I think you need to establish if people are using their nearest exit or the one they usually do. Look at way to encourage nearest exit use if as I suspect this is the case. Ask those who were/are last out where they came from and why it took that time.

Also walk the route yourelf, time it, look for areas that will bottleneck and solutions to this. If it takes 15-20 minutes to leave the building, then assuming there are no nearer exits, then alternative additional exits should be looked at.

With the limited information given, its difficultv to advise anything else. However, its important that an evacuation event may not mean a fire. In these modern times it may be a security event, which means everyone really should be aware of their nearest exit.

Its quite possible that signage and lights may need to be looked at to highlight the closest exit.

I have just started a job at a university and something similar happened here. At my last job, government research labs, two story buildings we expected everybody to be out in less than 5 minutes, and we sometimes doing it 2 or 3 minutes (that’s upto 200 people in block). At University (13 storey 1960’s block) we seem to have managed it in about 10 minutes and then a class from a lecture theatre on the top floor turned up nearly 15 minutes after the alarm. They seemed rather lackadaisical, chatting, checking their phones and not worried about being the last people out. We got some vague excuse about them being the last people out and the stairs could not cope with crowds.

They all went dowm one staircase as this was the one closest to that lecture theatre and no it was not their normal stairs. Apparently it used to be much worse, with some lecturers not letting students out at all unless they were told by a fire marshal to go.

It's a Uni thing ( not ideal but needs a fundamental shift in culture)

You may also have cctv coverage of the areas, if so look at that for bottleneck areas. I assume there are various final exits and the timings are actually people leaving the building and not appearing at assembly points.

Originally Posted by: Russ1977

also because of congestion, I am told that some people started to turn back and look for alternative routes, I have time and again told people that they should only seek an alternative if an exit route is compromised.

What do you deem as compromised? I would think if people are standing in a queue for 20 minutes then the exit is compromised. If you have so many trying to get out and there are not enough exits and suggests that the building wasn't made to hold this many people.

Thanks Ray,

I have follow up forms from all Wardens but they just mention congestion without stating any reason that may have been the cause.

I have asked them all but each time, they only seem to suggest it was sheer volume of people.

Very frustrating especially when others are expecting me to provide solutions.

When I worked in a college we did one every term - and that was on top of the unplanned ones set off by acts of vandalism.

Everytime, everyone knew what to do. We are all drilled on these every few months from our first few days of school. Different building/ different layout but the procedure is the same. However, familiarity breeds complacency. No one panics because no-one believes they are at risk. There is no jeopardy. IOSH magazine had an article about this a few months back which sparked some debate.

There are many things for you to consider. Most of which have been suggested. It may be that you need to conduct a couple more, maybe positioning yourself in the room with the slowest group to see what its like at the back.

Edited by user 22 November 2016 15:56:00(UTC)  | Reason: Duplication of a word

Originally Posted by: Invictus

Does your assembly point have anything to do with it, i.e. the congestion is based around they can stay in the building longer so all use the same door closest to the assembly point?

do you have signs for different areas to move in another direction towards a separate exit. There could be a lot of reasons which have been mentioned so it is worth being in the area were the time taken is longest and see what happens, if they are taking thier time it might be worth 'lighting a fire under them' to get a move on.

in my case I thing that the assembly point, was an issue as it was just outside the final  exit door, and once they had all decamped it was very crowded there. We intend to move it around the corner to create an empty space in front of the building.