Toward the Characterization of Building Occupancies for Fire Safety Engineering: Capability of People with Disabilities to Read and Locate Exit Signs

This paper is the fourth and last in a series of papers that collectively provide a substantial body of knowledge on the egress capabilities of people with disabilities. It presents the results of an experimental program designed to determine the ability of disabled people to locate and read three types of code-compliant exit signs: non-illuminated, internally illuminated, and Light Emitting Diode (LED) signs. The results indicate that for people with seeing impairments, LED signs are the easiest to see and read. The results of this study are presented for the use of those involved in the difficult task of characterizing building occupancies with respect to their egress capabilities.