British Journal of Educational Technology

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01325.x

Vol 44 No 1 2013

E18E21

Colloquium
Using electronic maps and augmented reality-based training materials as
escape guidelines for nuclear accidents: An explorative case study in Taiwan
1325

18..2118..21

Ming-Kuan Tsai, Pei-Hsun Emma Liu and Nie-Jia Yau

Address for correspondence: Mr Ming-Kuan Tsai, National Central University, Research Center for Hazard
Mitigation and Prevention, No.300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan County 32001, Taiwan. Email:
twmktsai@ms95.url.com.tw

Introduction
In the past decades, several serious nuclear accidents have occurred (Goor, Davydchuk &
Vandenhove, 2003). Unfortunately, on March 11, 2011, in Japan, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake
that caused a tsunami affected the nuclear power plants. Since radiation materials spread out and
were detected in the air, the Fukushima citizens were forcibly exposed to hazardous substances. In
order to prevent the same mistakes in the future, the Taiwanese government conducts at least
two large-scale training programs regarding the nuclear accident emergency response every year.
The training programs include establishing emergency centers, organizing relief personnel and
evacuating the public. The public, medical professionals, members of the military and law
enforcement participate in these programs. In the meantime, paper-based training materials are
commonly used, with textual escape guidelines and visual maps that describe temporary shelters,
emergency centers and medical agencies.
Despite these efforts in organizing training programs, after participating in various training
programs regarding the escape from nuclear accidents, this study recognized that the paper-based
training materials remained unsatisfactory. One of the limitations is that the paper-based training
materials do not automatically present geographical information based on the locations of the
trainees. As a result, the trainees spent too much time on studying the materials, trying to
comprehend the geographical relationship between training sites and temporary shelters.
In order to compensate for the shortcoming, information-technology-based training materials
(eg, Electronic Maps [e-Maps]) have become popular (eg, Goor et al, 2003;Yatsalo, Mirzeabassov,
Okhrimenko, Pichugina & Lisyansky, 1998). While the e-Maps technique has been applied in
numerous training programs, the emerging Augmented Reality (AR) technique is rarely examined. In order to understand the efficiency of the two information techniques, this study proposes
e-Maps- and AR-based escape guidelines on mobile phones, and compares them through an
experiment. The outcomes would be helpful for the design of various training programs in accident
and emergency management.
Training materials
The two constructed escape guidelines allow the trainees to use mobile phones to access accurate
geographical information easily and immediately. The e-Maps technique represents spatial-based
geographical information (eg, descriptions, longitude and latitude) to assist the trainees to comprehend the periphery locations. For example, Figure 1 shows that the trainees could identify
nearby shelters rapidly based on their current locations through querying from this application.
Compared with paper maps, the e-Maps represent more information in real time, enable better
interactivity and fulfill higher customized requirements (Guo & Zhang, 2009).
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology 2012 BERA. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford
OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Colloquium

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Assigned shelter

Zoom in/out

Current position

Figure 1: Screenshot of e-Maps-based escape guidelines

An assigned shelter

Details of the
assigned shelter

Escape direction

Electronic compass

Figure 2: Screenshot of AR-based escape guidelines

The AR technique provides semi-realistic information services through the combination of the
real scene viewed by users and a virtual scene generated by operation devices (Tsou & Sun, 2006).
For instance Figure 2 shows that, when the trainees follow the AR-based escape guidelines,
the mobile phones capture the periphery images after the locations of the trainees are identified.
The generated virtual images are overlapped with the captured images to provide directions to the
assigned shelters. When the trainees click on the virtual images, the correlated information is
displayed. If the trainees are on the correct escape route, the virtual images are represented
on the screens of their mobile phones. Compared with the virtual reality, the AR technique
enhances information expression, visualizes information description and increases information
accessibility (Boud, Haniff, Baber & Steiner, 1999).
In summary, both types of escape guidelines provide clear geographical information, since they
are able to identify nuclear accident sites automatically, to highlight the temporary shelters
clearly and to show the escape routes immediately, according to the locations of the users.
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology 2012 BERA.

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British Journal of Educational Technology

Vol 44 No 1 2013

Methodology
This study adopts a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative assessments). The quantitative
assessment focused on data analysis, such as whether or not the trainees successfully arrived at
their assigned shelters, and how much time the trainees spent in getting there. The qualitative
assessment showed the trainees reflection on the two training materials.
The trainees were six (four male and two female) 26-year-old graduate students, who were
registered in the course of Hazard Prevention in 2011. In a simulated nuclear accident, the
trainees were divided into two groups (Groups A and B), and there were three people in each
group (two male and one female). The training material for Group A was the e-Maps-based escape
guidelines and that for Group B was the AR-based escape guidelines. All of these trainees used the
same mobile phones. Although the trainees were in six individual locations, the distances
between their locations and the shelters were all three kilometers.
During the test, the trainees locations were automatically identified through the Global Positioning System (GPS) embedded in the mobile phones. When Trainees 13 (Group A) performed the
e-Maps-based escape guidelines, they walked to the assigned shelters based on the showed escape
routes (Figure 1). The trainees could zoom in and out of the maps to investigate the escape routes
clearly. By receiving the escape routings through the AR-based escape guidelines, Trainees 46
(Group B) escaped from the site. The shelters were displayed as light spots in the electronic
compass as shown in the AR-based escape guidelines (Figure 2). The spots would be invisible if
the trainees were on an incorrect escape route. The trainees could modify the escape routes while
recognizing errors or looking for the correct shelters.
Results
Table 1 shows that Group A (e-Maps-based escape guidelines) required more time and had a lower
success rate in the escape. In contrast, Group B (AR-based escape guidelines) had better training
efficiency.
For Group A, although Trainees 1 and 2 successfully arrived at their assigned shelters, Trainee
3 failed the test. The average escape time for Group A was 65 minutes. Interviews with
members in Group A indicate that there is space for improving the e-Maps-based escape guidelines. For example, Trainee 1 thought that the operation of the e-Maps-based escape guide was
inconvenient. When Trainee 1 zoomed in the maps to confirm the escape routings, the assigned
shelter disappeared. When they zoomed out the maps, accessing the correlated information
became difficult. Therefore, they had to zoom in and out the maps frequently. Moreover, Trainee
3 claimed that the escape routes on the maps were unclear in some conditions, especially at
crossroads.
All trainees of Group B completed the escape successfully. The average escape time for Group B
was 51 minutes. Trainees 4 and 5 made some suggestions, although the AR-based escape

Table 1: The tested results of the e-Maps- and AR-based escape guidelines
Group
Trainee
Sex
Successful arrival
Spending time (minute)
Average time (minute)

A (e-Maps-based)

B (AR-based)

Male
Yes
58

Female
Yes
63
65

Male
No
74

Male
Yes
47

Female
Yes
50
51

Male
Yes
56

2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology 2012 BERA.

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guidelines enabled them to clearly comprehend the escape directions and the distances. For
example, when Trainee 4 used the mobile phone, the correlated escape information disappeared.
The mobile phone needed to identify the position of Trainee 4 again. Therefore, it is necessary to
represent escape information in a stable way. Based on the reflection from Trainee 5, if the escape
routings could be visualized with the periphery images, the escape guidelines would be more
powerful and beneficial for evacuating from nuclear accident sites.
Conclusion
This study presents the efficiency of the e-Maps- and AR-based escape guidelines in training
programs. When the trainees did not understand the geographical relationship between the
training sites and the shelters, the effectiveness of the AR-based escape guidelines seemed better
than those using e-Maps. Since the AR-based escape guidelines offered the real-time instruction
based on the periphery images, the trainees spent less time on investigating the maps. Using the
AR-based escape guidelines as training materials would be an alternative method for enhancing
the efficiency of various training programs in accident and emergency management.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the constructed e-Maps- and AR-based escape guidelines
should supplement the paper-based training materials, rather than replace them, since mobile
phones may be limited or out of service in extreme situations (eg, nuclear accidents, terrorist
threat, etc). Therefore, in the future, in addition to improving the major issues that were reported
in the results, it is necessary to analyze a complicated experiment associated with various variables, such as cross validation among paper-, e-Maps- and AR-based escape guidelines.
References
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Tsou, M. H. & Sun, C. H. (2006). Mobile GIServices applied to disaster management. In J. Drummond, R.
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2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology 2012 BERA.

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