ABSTRACT
Most countries have legal requirements that make it obligatory to provide an adequate means of escape in buildings where work is done and/or to which the public routinely have access (NFPA, 1997). Emergency lighting is an essential part of an adequate means of escape. Emergency lighting can have three roles; escape, shutdown, and continued operation. Escape lighting is lighting that is designed to ensure either the safe and rapid evacuation of a building or the ability to move to a place of refuge. To achieve this, escape lighting is designed to define the escape routes so that the occupants know which way to go, and to illuminate the escape routes so that the occupants can move along them quickly and safely. Escape lighting is not designed to enhance the ability of either the occupants or the rescue services to deal with the emergency, other than to illuminate the positions of alarm points and fire-fighting equipment. Shutdown lighting is emergency lighting designed to enable the people involved in a potentially dangerous process or situation to carry out an appropriate shutdown procedure. CEN (1999) recommends that shutdown lighting should provide an illuminance of not less than 10 percent of the normal lighting and never less than 15 lx. Standby lighting is used in parts of a building or site where, even in an emergency, activities should continue substantially unchanged, such as an operating theatre at a hospital. Standby lighting is usually powered from an emergency generator and should provide an illuminance similar to that provided under normal operating conditions. This chapter is concerned with escape lighting.
