What is the purpose of time-to-exit metrics in an egress drill?

• A. To measure how quickly personnel evacuate to safe locations and identify bottlenecks
• B. To measure the time to restock supplies
• C. To measure the time since the last incident
• D. To evaluate maintenance response times

Answer: (A)

Time-to-exit metrics focus on how long it takes people to move from the moment an alarm begins to when they reach a designated safe location. This measures evacuation performance and overall efficiency of the egress process. By tracking exit times, you can see not just how fast individuals move, but how smoothly the crowd flows through routes, doors, stairwells, and intersections. The goal is to identify bottlenecks—like congested corridors, slow door operation, or confusing wayfinding—and to target improvements in training, signage, route planning, or facility design so that people can reach safety quickly in a real emergency.

Other options don’t capture evacuation performance. Restocking supplies is a logistics activity, not about exiting the building. Time since the last incident relates to history rather than current evacuation effectiveness. Maintenance response times concern repairs, not how people evacuate during drills.