Team or Dr. Lee Deok-hee at Korea Railroad Research Institute developed a survival passage (or tunnel) for subways.

The smart evacuation passage is a system that is stored in a folded state on the wall or ceiling in normal times, and automatically unfolds in case of an emergency, allowing passengers to safely evacuate to a passage separated from smoke. It will shield people from smoke. It is made of special material. It can withstand even at 200 ℃ for more than an hour.

There are entrances at intervals of 20 meters so that people can easily enter the passage from anywhere, and there are emergency lighting facilities inside the passage to aid evacuation and movement. In addition, fresh air is pressurized and supplied to prevent smoke from entering the passage in case of fire.

The unfolding evacuation passage can be configured in various ways, such as a form unfolding from a wall, a form from a ceiling, and a form from a TV box. Tunnels or subway transfer passages are suitable for the form unfolding from the wall, waiting rooms or underground shopping malls are unfolded from the central ceiling, and large spaces such as airports, gymnasiums, and movie theaters are suitable for passages extending from boxes. The passage that unfolds from the box can be used as a simple containment room or a passage for separating traffic lines.

- Project name: Development of a complex terminal emergency evacuation support system (National Science and Technology Research Association convergence research project)

- Research Period: Jan. 1, 2017 ~ Dec. 31, 2020 (4 years)

- Research Director: Deokhee Lee, Senior Researcher, Railroad

The smart evacuation corridor completed the verification of part-by-part prototypes and has been running a pilot installation in the Sinheung Station area of Daejeon Metro in cooperation with Daejeon Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation since last year.

"It is an economical idea technology that applies a material that folds without burning," said Lee Deok-hee, a researcher in charge of the research, and said his ambition to develop this technology to create a "unfolded and self-driving rescue shuttle."

In addition, it was expected that “smart evacuation passages will become one of the key technologies that protect passengers' safety in GTX deep railroads and large transit centers in the context of expanding underground space development.”

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