NFPA Journal - November/December 2019 - 60

Perspectives

BUILDING SAFETY

EXITING
SMARTER

IN A WORLD THREATENED BY ACTIVE SHOOTERS,
CATASTROPHIC STORMS, AND AN ARRAY OF
OTHER NON-FIRE EMERGENCIES, SOME SAFETY
EXPERTS ARE ADVOCATING FOR A NEW APPROACH
TO EMERGENCY EXIT SIGNAGE
Interview conducted and edited by Angelo Verzoni
hey're ubiquitous. Walk into

T

WHICH WAY?
Dynamic exit
signage can
provide building
occupants with a
smarter egress path
to safety by telling
them exactly where
to go-and, perhaps
more importantly,
where not to go-
in the event of an
emergency.

nearly any building open to the
public and you'll see them: white or
clear rectangles emblazoned with
neon-orange block letters spelling "EXIT." We've been told, since before we can
remember, to make note of them.
But in a world increasingly threatened by
non-fire emergencies like active shooters and
100-year storms, some experts say it's time to
rethink static traditional exit signs in favor of
something more dynamic. One of those experts is
Mike Ferreira, a 25-year veteran in the field of fire
protection engineering. He currently serves as a
vice president at Jensen Hughes and also sits on
the technical committee for NFPA 92, Standard
for Smoke Control Systems.

60 | NFPA JOURNAL * N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9

The problem with traditional exit signs, Ferreira
says, is that people have become so used to them
that they go unnoticed. Exit signs have become
just another element of the visual stimuli present in buildings-what Ferreira refers to as "visual
noise." It's similar to how the public began ignoring traditional tonal fire alarms, which created the
need to introduce more advanced alarm systems
equipped with voice messages or signage that
specify what kind of emergency is occurring. "But
we stopped there," Ferreira says. "We told people
to get out and why they need to get out, but then
it's up to them to find these exit signs and determine how to leave the building."
The need for dynamic signage, as it's called,
is present now more than ever, according to
Ferreira. Say you have an active shooter in the
lobby of a building-you don't want people
following traditional exit signs into that lobby or
exiting the same way they came into the building, which would also likely take them through
the lobby. Working in sync with a building's information systems, dynamic signage could place an
"X" over the exit signs that route people through
the lobby, or they could light a different path to
safety. Likewise, in a flood, you might want building occupants to get to higher floors as opposed to
guiding them to the ground level like traditional
exit signs would-and dynamic signage could
provide that unique direction.
Currently, dynamic signage is more common
in Europe than it is in the United States, Ferreira
says, but he hopes things will change in the
coming years. There is research to suggest that
such a change wouldn't be difficult for the public
to adapt to. "Some blind studies have shown that
70 percent of people having never seen [dynamic]
signage before will still follow the indications
given by the signs," Ferreira says. "So it's pretty
powerful."
The 2021 edition of NFPA 101®, Life Safety
Code®, will likely include new annex language
on dynamic signage, according to Gregory
Harrington, NFPA staff liaison to NFPA 101.
While making note of the potential benefit of dynamic signage, the proposed language
would also serves to caution users of its potential drawbacks, Harrington says, such as the
NFPA Journal - November/December 2019

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