BIM-Enabled Decision Making for In-Building Rescue Missions

As hazardous situations occur in public spaces, decision making for rescue is always the most important but challenging task. Nowadays, this issue has lead to the necessity of computer-aided approaches. This research considers the fire situation in public spaces, and the rescue plan is influenced by various attributes, such as: (1) geometry and material of building elements; (2) the spread of fire and smoke; and (3) the behavior of endangered people; and (4) escape routes. The authors combined network analysis with Building Information Model (BIM) to facilitate the decision making for rescue operations. Building geometry is retrieved efficiently from BIM for network generation and route finding, and material properties are acquired for fire risk analysis by using the Revit Application Program Interface (API). Rescue routes based on graph networks for rescuers can be calculated depending on actual building conditions. Risks based on building materials are expected to be adapted into network edge costs for lowest risk route finding. It is expected that the accuracy and efficiency will be greatly improved for decision making in in-building rescue operations.