Abstract
In crowded large space buildings, safety is one of the most important concerns for Facilities Managers. Poor health and safety risk management in buildings such as sports stadiums, concert halls, and religious centreshave resulted in crowd disasters that can be traced back to the behaviour of the users in various venues across the world. Within the built environment, safety has been classified into two main parts: objective safety (normative and
substantive) and subjective safety (perceived). In practice, a lot of emphasis has been given to objective safety, but research has shown that subjective safety is equally important and cannot be overlooked. Therefore, this thesis focuses on subjective safety and theorises that a decline in perceived safety will have an influence on the user behaviour in crowded large space buildings, which ultimately could result in crowd disaster. The primary aim of this thesis is to
investigate the relationship between perceived safety and user behaviour in crowded large space buildings to enhance safety during an event.
This thesis has adopted two theoretical frameworks (FIST and Six dimensions and loci of crowd disaster) and has developed a comprehensive conceptual model (Subjective Crowd Safety Model (SCSM)) consisting of 12 risk constructs and 59 items (indicators) of safety in crowded large space buildings. It chose to use the Holy Mosque in Makkah (356,800 square metres size) as a case study, a building that is used by a large crowd on a continuous basis all year round with its peak occupancy of two million users (pilgrims) usually reached during the Hajj (an annual pilgrimage to Makkah that is undertaken by Muslims from all over the world). Data was collected using iPad devices via a group- administered questionnaire distributed to 1940 pilgrims of 62 nationalities.
The results were analysed using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for descriptive analysis and Kruskal-Wallis H Test. Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) was used for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results confirmed that there is a significant relationship between perceived safety and user behaviour in crowded large space buildings. The findings of the thesis will enable facilities managers to be aware of: the safety perception of the users of large space buildings; and the factors that make them feel unsafe.
Date of Award | Jan 2019 |
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Original language | English |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisor | Kassim Gidado (Supervisor) & Noel Painting (Supervisor) |