Evacuation Assistance Watch
When fire occurs, finding the optimize route for evacuation is critical. Use a centralized routing system for balanced evacuation.
Description
In one of the most infamous incidents in America’s industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns down on this day in 1911, killing 145 workers. The tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of factory workers. The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of the Asch Building, on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, in Manhattan. It was a true sweatshop, employing young immigrant women who worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines. Nearly all the workers were teenaged girls who did not speak English and made only about $15 per week working 12 hours a day, every day. In 1911, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to file down a long, narrow corridor in order to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent stealing and the other only opened inward. The fire escape was so narrow that it would have taken hours for all the workers to use it, even in the best of circumstances. [Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fire-kills-145-at-triangle-shirtwaist-factory] Finding the optimal evacuation route is always a challenging task when a real emergency case occurs. People tend to select the shortest and known route for evacuation which is not always the optimized and balanced solution. Having the ability to create fairness between possible routes can be the key for saving more lives in case of fire. The idea is to use wearable watches (or cheaper smart bands) that identify the location of their owner, and in a case of emergency, use this information to provide the owner with the optimized way out. A centralized system shall be able to track down all workers who wear this watch, calculate the optimal route which provides a balance between alternative routes and the people who need to use it. Via the wearable device, the worker shall get real time instructions where to go, and when. For example, when the route is too occupied, the risk of fire or smoke may be lower than the chance of getting hurt due to the crowd. Instructions such as "wait", "go left", "go right", "move forward" can assist, in a more advanced format the watch shall show the path on its screen and show the user where he or she are located compared to this path.
References
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fire-kills-145-at-triangle-shirtwaist-factory