The Reliability Assessment for Fire Safety Response System in the Underground MRT Station

Due to the difficulties of obtaining land properties in urban areas, MRT stations are often constructed underground. From safety aspects, underground establishments are sure to increase the complexity of emergency escapes. In 2003, Feb, 18, 198 deaths, and 146 wounded from the accident taken place in Taegu Korea. Smothering and massive smoke are most common in underground fire accidents. In such events, people are usually under great stress and irrationality, and by misjudgments of the current condition, it will inevitably lead to unimaginable disasters. Fire accidents are often an indefinite environment, and it is appropriate to render stochastic methods to illustrate the safety of a location. This is why in this research we applied the concepts of reliability to evaluate the safety of a MRT station.
By evacuation subsystem and fire-control subsystem, we constructed a fire safety responsive model, we also included human factors. Suppose that the fire initiated on the platform of the station, when successfully extinguishes the fire, within the platform, we considered it a secure state. If fire was uncontrollable, then evacuating the civilians to a safety locality is considered another secure state. By the previously mentioned definition, we calculated that the reliability of MRT Gong-guan station is about 92.5%, in plain words, there is 92.5% of getting out the station alive.
Furthermore, if smoke exhaustion facilities were available, and it was able to vacuum all the smoke, then the reliability would increase by 1.8% to 94.3%; Also, if smoke detectors were able to alert the station personnel to put out the fire in time, then the reliability would increase by 2.8% to 95.3%; Moreover, if proper and frequent training of using the fire extinguishing equipments were instructed to all passengers, making them capable of putting out the fire appropriately, then the reliability will increase by 5.2% to 97.7%. In conclusion, we are able to understand that the ability to putting out on site as fast as possible, would be far more beneficial in saving lives than having highly sophisticated equipments or facilities.