On the Route Choice Behavior of Passengers Evacuating from a Motorcoach Based on Questionnaire

In China, motorcoaches provide convenience, but also can lead to fatal accidents. However, little effort has been devoted to exploring the route choice behavior for passengers evacuating from a motorcoach due to the difficulties of obtaining experimental data. In this paper, the passengers’ route choice behavior during evacuation from a motorcoach with two doors was investigated by a questionnaire-based experiment with 150 passengers aged from 20 to 70. SPSS collected and analyzed 134 effective questionnaires. These findings below were obtained: (1) kin behavior, queue composition, driver’s guidance, obstacle, position, congestion and danger have significant effects on the exit choice of passengers; (2) education level only affects the backtracking behavior; and (3) no permanent effects of age and gender on route choice behavior were observed. This study could be helpful for safety design of motorcoaches and provide reference for emergency managers to devise evacuation schemes.