VISIBILITY OF BALLOON-TYPE EVACUATION SIGN FOR TSUNAMI EVACUATION GUIDANCE

Abstract

 This study proposes the use of Balloon-Type Evacuation Signs (BTES) to guide evacuees to Safety Evacuation Areas (SEA) in the event of a tsunami. An experiment was conducted in Wakabayashi Ward, Sendai City, to evaluate their visibility. The obtained results are as follows: 1) BTES has the potential to guide people to evacuate up to 1.5 km from SEA, covering the entire tsunami inundation zone in Wakabayashi Ward. However, it is important to ensure that people are aware of the meaning of BTES in advance. 2) The higher the altitude and the larger the diameter of BTES, the more noticeable it becomes to people. Nevertheless, within a distance of approximately 500 meters from BTES, there was less variation in visibility based on different altitudes or diameters. BTES should be designed according to the assumed evacuation guidance area for SEA. Although several issues need to be addressed before implementing BTES in society, this experiment revealed new possibilities of BTES as a novel evacuation guidance method.