258 - e-mobility fires in trains with Adam Barowy

Why Micro Mobility On Transit Matters

Wojciech 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Far Science Show. Again, a battery episode, and this time we're talking about batteries that travel together with us, and they unfortunately or perhaps disturbingly travel with us through different modes of transportations that, we take or that people take every day to reach their jobs, to reach their homes, to reach their schools, et cetera. Uh, it's all about the e-mobility devices like scooters, bicycles, uh, hoverboards. Uh, hoverboards are kind of disappointing, right? They were supposed to hover. Well, regardless, all the things that people use to move them from one place or another, s- and especially in relation to the transport infrastructure, things they use to get to the station, things they use to get out of the station. And obviously, it means that while they're on the train, the device travels with them. Uh, a lot of, uh, people are alarming about those devices being put on those modes of transport. We've seen videos from different parts of the world, New York, Toronto, Madrid, from UK, uh, some incidents that happened on the train, some incidents that tra-- happened on train platforms, and, uh, now we face a decision or the railway operators face a decision what to do with that. Um, thankfully, there are people doing research in the research community, and we can learn from them. And here we are learning from Adam Barowy from UL Research Institutes, FSRI. Adam had a chance to burn some scooters in trains, and, uh, that, that was an interesting, uh, quick, uh, well, quick and as they had one day to burn, but lo-longer for prep for sure. That's a, that's a program where they get access to a railway car. They got access to some e-mobility devices and designed, uh, an experimental program to actually see what we are dealing with. But, uh, e-scooters in railway cars is not the only thing that Adam and his team at FSRI have burned down because we know them for, uh, years and years of, of experiments with e-mobility devices in, in residential settings, in other settings. So it kind of complements the already exciting and huge amount of knowledge that has been created at FSRI. Uh, to spoil you the outcomes, yes, they burn. Yes, they fill the cars very quickly with smoke. Yes, they're perhaps challenging. There are different flavors to that. There's explosion risk, and all of that is gonna be covered in this podcast episode. And of course, I have to hype about the amazing sets of resources that FSRI is putting on their web pages. So links are in the show notes if you would like to see the visuals, and they are striking. You should go to the show notes, follow the links, and it will get you to the place where you will find them all. I guess that's it for, uh, an introduction. I'm really happy that we were able to do this interview. I'm looking forward to more interviews with FSRI, right? Because wow, the job that these people are making is, is just outstanding. Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode

Sponsor Message And Return

Wojciech 3:33

The Fire Science Show podcast is brought to you in collaboration with OFR Consultants, a multi-award-winning independent consultancy dedicated to addressing fire safety challenges. OFR is the UK's leading fire risk consultancy that this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. As experts in fire engineering, they are fully committed to delivering preeminent expertise to protect people, property, and the environment. With over 30 chartered engineers and a team of fire researchers at their core, they continually explore the challenges that fire creates for their clients and society so that the best research, experience, and diligence can be applied for effective tailored solutions. In 2026, OFR will grow its team once again and is keen to hear from industry professionals who want to collaborate on fire safety features this year. Get in touch at ofrconsultants.com. And now back to the episode

How Battery Fires Beat Compartments

Wojciech 4:34

Hello, everybody. I am joined today by Adam Barowy from UL Research Institutes, FSRI. Hey, Adam. Hello. Good to work with you again. Hey, nice to, nice to have you in the podcast in person. We're in, uh, Netherlands in some orange alert for heat wave. luckily hidden in a well air-conditioned space, and last time we've talked, we discussed micro mobility fires, and this, this talk follows that talk. it was about compartments back then. It was b- about garages back then. let me first ask, do you have any more refined, feelings after some time has passed since that research? Or maybe, maybe you could actually recap it for listeners who have not heard the previous episode, which I recommend actually.

Adam Barowy 5:15

Yeah, sure, sure. So actually, I recommend you go to our webpage, fsri.org. Uh, we provide, uh, all the footage from our experiments on there, and you can actually even download copies through Vimeo to put in your own presentations this-

Wojciech 5:28

Oh, wow so- What an offer. What an offer.

Adam Barowy 5:31

Uh, we, we, uh, well, you know, it's our job to spread the word, and we're non- not for profit, so, uh- Yeah all of our work is public. but what you'll see in our work on, uh, micro mobility, inside residential spaces- is that, traditionally, so about 12 years ago, Steve Kerber, our executive director, put out a, a paper showing that the residential timeline used to be about 30 minutes to flash over, and now it's more like three to four with modern furnishings. Mm. Well, what we saw with micro-mobility devices, whether we overcharged them or overheated them, you know, mechanisms that can cause thermal runaway, the fires grow so quickly, about a megawatt in 10 to 30 seconds-

Wojciech 6:08

Yeah

Adam Barowy 6:08

they're not only a phenomenal ignition source, they're a phenomenal fuel, and so the second item ignited gets going extremely quickly. And if that second item ignited is the upholstered furniture that we've been kind of banging the bell about for, you know, 10 to 20 years now, the fire accelerates faster than we've ever seen before. Mm. So we're saying about a minute to flash over. But the real challenge, and I think I talked about this with you last time, is that, when you have this release of gas from, uh, thermal runaway, it might ignite immediately. It's kind of stochastic. It might take a little bit to ignite. But you can form a flammable gas volume around the battery. If that ignites, when you're in a, a environment as enclosed and as structurally weak as a residence, things like, uh, the windows will break.

Wojciech 6:56

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 6:56

Now you've lost your compartmentation. I think last time I, I said I was worried about the windows breaking. but now we've seen some other case studies, and from other, fire departments around the world, heard that, well, the, the wall was broken or the wall was knocked down inside the structure. Wow. So fast-growing fire, uh, loss of compartmentation leads to more rapid fire spread. And so the expectation of the fire departments is, uh, they're kind of getting used to, we're, like, catching up now on modern, fires driven by synthetics. But now it's like, okay, it's definitely going to be vent limited when they arrive. Mm. So now they need to understand fire dynamics and the, how, how their ventilation operations impact fire growth. But also the victim's profile could be changing. Now, that's not my area. Uh, you know, Keith Stakes does this area- This is- on, uh, Firefighter Rescue Survey. But if people are being incapacitated faster, where they're gonna be found may be changing. Uh, the condition they're found in may be changing. They're

Wojciech 7:53

also gonna be in more dire situation because the escape routes are cut off.

Adam Barowy 7:57

Yep. Uh. Yeah, yeah. And escape routes are critically important. Uh, so when we looked in our experiments, we have a ranch-style house that's, you know, single story house, very common in the United States. But we kind of equate it to, uh, the footprint of a high-rise apartment. Yeah,

Wojciech 8:13

yeah.

Adam Barowy 8:14

Like in New York City, there's, there's, you know, effectively the front door is the way in and out. so if you're charging your device in that egress path, then you've compromised your exit immediately. No

Wojciech 8:25

way, no way to pass. Yeah, yeah. I mean, o- one megawatt fire, like, that, that's already a very large fire. Like, one megawatt in the typical compartment, that, that, that's when you start touching the flash over limits, really.

Adam Barowy 8:36

Yeah.

Wojciech 8:36

I think in a room corner you're supposed to get to, like, one megawatt, and that, that means- Mm flash over pretty much.

Adam Barowy 8:41

Yeah.

Wojciech 8:41

There's a reason why, you know, uh, T squared fires are, counted t- till, like, o- one megawatt or 1,055 kilowatts thanks to your, uh, BTUs or whatever- you tried to torture us with. Yeah, yeah. But, but that, that, that, one megawatt is a large number. And, wow, I th- this setup in residential houses is, is something really dangerous to, to, to great part of the population But it's not something that, uh, the fire engineers would be dealing that much with, you know? My, my audience is, is fire engineers. So while I, I try to, expose, us all to, to important societal issues, which this definitely is a societal issue, we also have buildings- Mm which we design, which are also a part of this problem. Yeah. So let's move, Adam, to transportation infrastructure-

Adam Barowy 9:27

Uh, uh, but I, I will just stop you for one second- Yeah to take a brief tour through, I think the, the, the product map. Where else we're worried, because, uh- Okay, fine. Yeah because you, you mentioned fire protection engineers and it made me think, well, we don't often deal with, uh, residential structures. No,

Wojciech 9:42

that's, that's

Batteries Spreading Through Buildings

Wojciech 9:43

the point.

Adam Barowy 9:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. but, the products that we're seeing batteries in are expanding, and I think what we learn from e-bikes, it's critically to- important to consider, it's the batteries. It's not the bike, right? Mm-hmm. So it's, uh, batteries inside a box. But, say local to me, there's a new ordinance that, uh, the county's going to be trying to do away with natural gas-fired, uh, stoves. It's bad indoor air quality. Mm. Can cause health issues. So the remedy is electric range tops, which the building cannot supply enough power. So there's discussion now about, well, should the building have battery storage? Should the stove itself have battery storage? The question has been, raised for refrigerators, for HVAC units. And you think about all of the spaces that these can go into. Now, our experiments looked at this ranch house. Wow. The windows blow out really easily. Some of the most fun work I've ever done, the garage work, we're doing, yeah, uh, bags of flammable gas and blowing off the garage door. Wonderful spot to keep your batteries for your home safety. But now, if you've got, uh, say, an HVAC unit in the attic, there's no venting space.

Wojciech 10:46

So but, but- And- Okay, w- what's the point? Uh- Yeah the point is that the device, the, the power consumption of the device is higher than the peak that the, the local network can support- Yeah so you just charge the battery- Yeah and then for a short time you just release-

Adam Barowy 11:00

Yeah, the battery's the buffer. The battery's the buffer. And I, I don't, I don't think this is a bad idea in terms of engineering. We'll need this if everyone's going to, you know, become- Yeah more sustainable. But we need to consider when there's a failure, okay? Some gas can be released. How do we deal with that situation in the different spaces it is in? I can buy a portable, battery at the local big box store that says it's for me to bring to my campsite and like, uh, watch TV in the woods or whatever. Mm-hmm. But, uh, there's instructions in it that tell me how to wire it to the panel in my home.

Wojciech 11:32

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 11:32

Now it's in the basement. So yeah, I, I know I've diverted from e-bikes, but it's... Wait, what did we learn? Now, where else are we gonna see it? And let's take a step further. You wanna talk about buildings that, that fire protection engineers have some influence on. Yeah,

Wojciech 11:47

yeah.

Adam Barowy 11:47

There's, uh... Okay, for high occupancy buildings, uh, residential, there's discussion. Do we put the charging station that's lockable outside the building outside? I love that. I don't know if it's practical. As a resident, I don't know. there's also, "Should we put a charging room on, like, the end of every floor?" If you put that charging room there, you'll have to solve these same problems.

Wojciech 12:09

I mean, I even sent you an email a, a few months ago, and I thank you very much for your very, uh, detailed and long response. Like, uh- what do you feel about, uh, homes, uh, energy storage systems? Because again, in, in my case, what I see is people, put them exactly where you don't want the scooter to be. Mm-hmm. They put them where, where you have the electrical fuse box- Yeah and you have some space, and that's usually by the entrance to your home because that's where all the electrical network is emerging, and that's the best place for you to fiddle with it on a scale of your home. So, so that's the natural location where you would like to have your 30 kilowatt hour battery parked, and at the same time, that's the one spot out of your house where you really should have sacred, you know- I agree safety, you know?

Adam Barowy 12:53

A- a- and-

Wojciech 12:54

Such challenge.

Adam Barowy 12:54

I, I know I'm signing up for fiery and, emails from, you know, pro energy storage or maybe energy storage industry, but, my own brother, uh, had, uh, solar panels and, energy storage installed on his property. And, uh, when he told me he was gonna do it, I said, "Don't put it inside your house. Put it outside your house." Mm. And he went, "Oh, really?" So he talked to the, uh, installer and just said, "I want it under the solar panels in the yard." Okay. No problem." There was never any pushback. Mm. Now, we have the luxury of space in the United States. Yeah. Yeah, but, but I still think that you could put them outside a building with non-combustible separation. At least that's better.

Wojciech 13:28

f- for us, it's more like, housing in, in condo buildings, so it's not really possible to do it outside. But if you have a, an a- a apartment building with 100 flats in there, perhaps there's a, a, a opportunity for a shared electrical support system for all of those flats- Yeah at once in a safe space away from all of them, rather than 100 distributed smaller systems. I'm not saying they're dangerous, but it's, it's, you know, It's not yet a risk, but it's potentially a hazard, you know? Uh

Adam Barowy 13:59

Yeah. I mean, I, I understand that our look, at UL, the way we look at things, at least at first when we start to solve a problem, is very consequence-heavy, and say, "All right, fail- failure rate be damned." It... Would we accept a situation where this failure inside a building can cause, fatalities when it could have gone... You know, if it's on the inside of the wall, if it could go through the thickness of the wall to the other side, that consequence will never happen.

Wojciech 14:22

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 14:23

Uh, can we just, uh, maybe... I think all I'm really asking is can we put that on the electrical engineering map and say, "Make that one of your design constraints and deal with it"?

Wojciech 14:31

Like, if we don't talk about it, we're never gonna get solutions, and- Yeah I appreciate that you are acting on it before the fatality statistics, uh, tell you that, uh- Mm something is going on. Yeah. Or at least, uh, thanks to Neri, so you will know faster. Yeah. Yeah. But, but that has already- Yeah been covered in the podcast. Uh, Adam- Yeah how about

Why Trains Are A Hard Case

Wojciech 14:54

transportation? Okay. What, what happens when the battery meets the, meets the train, meets the tramway, meets a metro? Like, how did you enter this, this space? Was it a natural transition from the fires in residentials? Like, what, what was first perhaps?

Adam Barowy 15:08

It was always there. the concern for transportation spaces has always been there since, I think, the first talk of burning something in a residence. Uh, you know, residences came first because it was the bellwether. It was where people started being injured and killed. And very, very fortunately, I don't think globally we've yet seen any fatal incidents in transportation, at least not directly from, like, uh, any bike inside a train car or, you know, a battery inside a, a passenger cabin of something. Um, but we feel like it might be imminent because, you know, you mentioned, uh, this one megawatt is, uh, this, this, tipping point for, for flashover inside a building compartment. But if you look at the construction of mass transit, it just, it does depend on, uh, is it shorter transit or is it longer transit? And what I mean is, like, in the United States, in intercity transit, it's like the passenger, cabin in a plane. Everything is plastic.

Wojciech 16:07

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 16:07

Now, because of the mode of transportation, it's very difficult to have anything but a single layer of protection, which is fire retardants. And I'll step carefully there, but, the protections that were designed, many years ago were if we put enough fire retardants in, things like cigarettes or maybe electrical faults, I'm, I'm not sure what else, but small, weak ignition sources that could be more common are not going to cause the ignition of the, interior surface finish. But the battery fires clearly are a much stronger ignition source, so if they overwhelm that fire retardant, then we have, uh, spreading fire in the surface finish, in the seats, in the foam. so we're both concerned about spread, uh, that overwhelms that single layer of protection, but we're also concerned about the initial heat and smoke from the device itself. As we've already said, that's a big fire.

Wojciech 17:00

Are you developing a, a... That, that's probably a side proj- a side, side project side question, but, uh, i- is there a, um, a test standard in development whi- which would be like kind of, um, cigarette- equivalent, uh, battery ignition source. Because we, we have those standardized, you know, like you mentioned, sources, arcs, cigarettes, uh, that you use commonly in tests for, for example, furnishing materials.

Adam Barowy 17:24

Mm.

Wojciech 17:25

Perhaps we need an equivalent of, a lithium ion battery, though it, it, that's gonna be hard to, to, to define.

Adam Barowy 17:30

I totally agree. Um, those conversations are being had. I think, one of the most hot areas right now is for portable fire extinguishers. And I, I wo- I won't get too distracted with this, but, you know, there needs to be some standard battery fire to extinguish.

Wojciech 17:45

Mm.

Adam Barowy 17:45

And y- your concerns are w- what's the size of the battery? What's the chemistry of the battery? How do you start the battery fire? Sta- state

Wojciech 17:51

of charge and

Adam Barowy 17:51

yeah. All that stuff is really, a- and it all really affects the fire. So I think the easier question that's closer in front of us that I think we can maybe grab-

Wojciech 17:59

Mm

Adam Barowy 18:00

is, if we look back at the research that was done to determine fire retardants are, are effective on trains, clearly they are. We don't really have any incidents there. What is the size of battery? What's the tipping point? a cellphone? No. A laptop? Hmm. Probably not. As we go bigger in size, eventually, okay, we can't fit an EV inside a train car, obviously that's a problem. Yes. Well, there are the auto cars. Uh- Yeah no, I'll stay on task here. But, at some point there's a tipping point a- and the ignition source is too strong. And, uh, a- again, it- so we looked at trains, but you can look at other passenger transit spaces and say, "What are the methods of protection there? Is it the single layer, the same thing? Do we have the same problem? And what size battery can overwhelm the protection that's there?"

Wojciech 18:45

trains are not the only mode of transportation. Yeah. I had long, long time ago, in the first year of Fire Science show, I had an episode with Anja Blühm-Hülshoffman from, uh, from BAM. And, and she talked about the massive differences in the way how fire safety's treated between trains and, buses, coaches, because they're, at least in the German market at the time, there used to be tremendous difference in how, how a reaction to fire of those, modes of transport is vastly different, yet they're both modes of transport for large groups of people- Mm-hmm which kind of makes no sense. It, it's an interesting episode. I recommend people to, to dig through the archive, to, to find it. But, uh, y- you're touching more, like, intercity modes of transport, more like suburban, like, uh, metro systems or, or holistically at all modes of transport, including, I don't know, ferries, uh, airplanes,

Adam Barowy 19:37

I, I think we have to be smart and start-

Wojciech 19:40

Okay

Adam Barowy 19:40

kind of small. And so we started with, passenger rail. but you know, I, I described it this way. I was informed I was sounding too much like an engineer, so fair warning. But, um, I said what we, we need to consider is, is spaces where you have a long tube lined with plastic, filled with people, and now I'm thinking of it, limited egress. Hmm. I mean, that's the problem. If you look everywhere where that can be, I mean, even submarines maybe, I don't know. But, like- You have buses, trains, to some degree planes, although they have a fairly decent track record of keeping large batteries out of planes.

Wojciech 20:12

I didn't see anyone with electric scooter entering a plane. Yeah.

Adam Barowy 20:16

But there's mobility devices. Yeah, that's true. And, and though that's kind of regulated, uh, I have found swappable batteries that are much bigger, that, uh, you know. To be honest, our gate agents are not customs officers. Mm-hmm. They don't know what to look for, so. Um, but yeah, so we did, we, we decided to look at trains first, and that's again, with a large influence from New York City.

Wojciech 20:37

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 20:37

Because New York City, I'll give the short version, but basically because of the emergence of e-bikes and then COVID, the gig economies sprung up so quickly for delivery in New York City, more than I think any city I'm aware of. So yeah, two or three years ago, there was like 60,000 delivery drivers estimated. 60,

Wojciech 20:57

okay.

Adam Barowy 20:58

Yeah, it's crazy numbers. Uh, so they don't have a high income, so they're buying cheap, uh, devices. they need to charge them faster, so they're using aftermarket chargers- Turbo chargers modifying, and they're working them hard. So, now, okay, that's the residential problem. We've talked about that. But the use of those devices elsewhere within the city, well, the

Real Incidents And Near Misses

Adam Barowy 21:20

battery, can't last forever, or maybe they wanna make it last longer, so they bring it down to the subway and ride from point A to point B across the city. Mm-hmm. So now they're, they're in the, uh, subways a lot. Okay. And, um, again, fortunately, no major incidents, but not zero incidents.

Wojciech 21:36

Okay.

Adam Barowy 21:36

So now we have seen some, some incidents in New York and around the world. Uh, I know I've shared my favorite video of New York showing, uh, New Yorkers at their finest, where, where it's a, it's a, it's a stand on top, uh, some, some call it a kick scooter. It looks like a folding scooter. must be a dead battery, but caught on fire, and it's laying on its side. And, most New Yorkers are doing what they do best and just kind of ignoring that it's happening ever. Yeah. Um, there's a woman fanning the smoke from her face, and of course someone's recording on their cell phone. But the difference is if that had, caught on fire before maybe the battery died, this could be something that drove our research faster.

Wojciech 22:13

Yeah, one megawatt fire. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's not nice. Uh- Yeah but, but that was not the only. I, I, I saw a bike fire in Toronto inside a railway car. Mm-hmm. and that was interesting because I, I saw the videos of that. It was like the behavior that I would expect from a one megawatt-ish fire. Mm-hmm. Smoke layer venting through the doors of the train, going into the train station. Train station behaves kind of like I would expect it to behave. Like, uh, I mean- It looked like a fire, but the one that I would be ready with my infrastructure. So while I'm happy that it happened and definitely caused some, you know, dis- disturbance to the rail network on that day, it didn't look that bad.

Adam Barowy 22:57

I think there are reasons why it didn't look that bad. I mean, I don't really know what the device was. Uh, I've sort of- It was

Wojciech 23:01

kind of like a bicycle. I, I don't know. Okay.

Adam Barowy 23:03

Yeah, prob- probably one of the bicycle style. but, uh, I think there's gonna be a range of severities and failures. Yeah. So if we allow that one to become our benchmark, then we're gonna say, "Oh, well, yeah, everyone's gonna inhale some smoke, and that's not so nice." Yeah. But maybe it won't be so bad. and those types of cars tend not to have combustible linings or- Yes furnishings of any kind, so again, it's another reason why it's survivable. And

Wojciech 23:26

they're, they're also one big space because if- Yeah the train was compartmentalized like you would have in your city-to-city trains, which is very common-

Adam Barowy 23:34

Yeah,

Wojciech 23:34

yeah that, that's a, a very different outcome.

Adam Barowy 23:36

Again, so we go back to New York City. there are lines that, the engine operator up front has a way to get down and out from the car, but then, uh, if this rail car or, or subway is in a tunnel, then the only real way is out through the back. So if any fire-

Wojciech 23:51

Uh-huh

Adam Barowy 23:51

blocks the car-to-car transport, you have that closed car filling with one megawatt rate of, uh, heat and smoke.

Wojciech 23:58

Okay, okay.

Adam Barowy 23:59

and now the challenge of moving car to car.

Wojciech 24:02

And it's... Okay, so you don't have a ability to open the doors on the side and escape through the side of the vehicle.

Adam Barowy 24:08

If... Yeah, if the train's in, uh, some tunnels, that, that may not be possible, or let's just say, uh, it's, um... Nah, it doesn't even have to be in a tunnel. It's a train going, uh... Oh, boy, metric system in the, uh... I'm, I'm, I'm sorry for this. Go for it. 80 miles an hour. How

Wojciech 24:23

many inches per- What, what, what's American unit per second?

Adam Barowy 24:27

It's like... Uh, what's funnier to me is when we actually apply metric to our own crazy units, like thousandths of an inch. Uh, well- Yeah. Um, um, so it's, it's got a... The train has to stop, so it's going to take some time, maybe one to two minutes. They stop faster than you'd think, but then people have to go down the stairs and onto unsteady gravel footing.

Wojciech 24:46

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 24:47

So the egress time is minutes. Well, the fire development time is not minutes, it's a minute, as we've just been talking about. So that's kind of a, the, you know, that, that, that was the basis for, ultimately why we, partnered, with a rail carrier and then did some burns inside a rail car.

Wojciech 25:02

We, we'll get there in a second. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about Madrid. There was also a- Mm a fire in Madrid.

Adam Barowy 25:07

I understand no one was, uh, injured in that fire. But, uh, you know, we can see from some photos that, uh, the fire developed to a point where there's some combustible material involved, even though it's limited around, like, where the doors open. Uh, the windows failed, so, you know, there's ventilation limitation. It's not an issue. Mm-hmm. so n- no injuries there. I think the probably the most important indicator to me, um, I, you know, happen to have them here, but Sutton, UK and London and Newark Airport Station, we've also seen failures of fairly highly charged devices on the platform before getting on the train.

Wojciech 25:41

Okay, so near miss kind of.

Adam Barowy 25:42

Near misses. And we can't say what would have happened if they were on the train, but, almost assuredly, either injuries thermally from someone nearby.

Wojciech 25:51

Yeah.

Adam Barowy 25:51

Uh, in our work we saw it was about 10 feet, um, three meters. And, uh- Thank

Wojciech 25:56

you.

Adam Barowy 25:56

Yeah. And then, um, uh, you know, probably asphyxiation of some kind.

Wojciech 26:01

How about- explosions, like, like in your compartment experiments where you just went with the vapor cloud and then eventually it exploded.

Adam Barowy 26:10

Mm.

Wojciech 26:10

None of that yet in, in a transportation.

Adam Barowy 26:13

We're concerned about it, and, I mean, you, I think you're getting to know me. I tried to make it happen. Uh, the batteries- Like

Wojciech 26:19

in a controlled- Yeah, yeah like disclaimer- Yeah, yeah in a controlled environment- Yeah in the lab.

Adam Barowy 26:23

Yeah. Well, because we, well, the, the way, uh, field logistics work out, it's not f- you know, it's not, uh, a playground. You have a very limited amount of time. So we had one day for tests. We ran four tests in one day, which is remarkable to me. The team is amazing. but, we said, uh, "Okay, we'll fill them in this way. We, we, we know it causes, uh, delayed ignition," but you don't control ignition. so we actually put an electric match even in the smoke cloud. Tried to ignite and see what would happen, but I think since there's such a distribution to explosion severity- Mm based on the, you know, the concentration around where you ignite and all these factors, that I, I don't think we have good data on it. where I think it matters is, even if you have this delayed ignition, I think it's gonna, like, probably pop everyone's ears. It will be tenths of a, or maybe, um, single digit, kilopascals- Mm if I'm getting that correctly. I, I don't think it'll be substantial. the amount of pressure that causes a residential structure to start to fail is well below what it starts to injure a person.

Wojciech 27:25

Yeah, like, for, for train windows to fall off- Yeah you need very well above 10 kilopascals,

Adam Barowy 27:33

I believe. That's wild. Yeah. I don't think you can get that kind of pressure. So when we think about it, it's kind of like, all right, well, could it cause the doors to fail and jam? Mm. If it blows out a window, who cares? That's fresh air. Good job. You know? Like, uh, wonderful. We have a recommendation after all our work, though, that we need to start considering how carriers can separate passengers from the fire environment that's going to develop from the d- the vehicle. So we said, "Uh, maybe a conductor should throw it in the bathroom and close the door." That's a much smaller volume now, and-

Wojciech 28:02

And we're talking about burning item or- Yeah or, or like very-

Adam Barowy 28:05

Smoking items smoking

Wojciech 28:06

item. So,

Adam Barowy 28:07

um, now we're like, okay, does, is there need, does there need to be some kind of deflagration venting because, uh, the failure of a all-metal compartment, uh, could be pretty violent. You know?

Wojciech 28:18

Well, the, the deflagration venting in a train's gonna be a hell of an issue because you also want them to be kind of sealed from the environment- Yeah for peaks of pressure when they enter tunnels. Uh- Yeah the, the counter-

Adam Barowy 28:30

But-

Wojciech 28:30

objectives.

Adam Barowy 28:31

Yeah, let's back up a step because I, I think, uh, all of that to say- if you get a delayed ignition in a, in a partial volume deflagration, it doesn't seem to be the number one risk to passengers or the operation of the train, so it's, like, bad, but it's really not the thing you need to worry about and take action on immediately.

Wojciech 28:49

Okay. So, uh, tell me about your collaboration with the train operator and, and, and how that went.

Full Scale Rail Car Burn Tests

Adam Barowy 28:54

Yeah, yeah. Uh, we'll leave it at a train operator for now. They were extremely gracious, and supportive of the work. we had, a false start originally trying to look at subways. if you ever do acquired structures, you know these things are very volatile. So, uh, we did end up partnering with a, uh, operator who provided us a full good condition, uh, rail car. And so we had a couple days for set up. We ran four experiments, um, with them and, you know, produced a whole report that's now available online. Um-

Wojciech 29:24

Link is in the show notes, of course.

Adam Barowy 29:26

Yep, yep. FSRI.org to get you, uh, to the link. And, what we decided to look at were the policy compliant devices. So, uh, this carrier has, some, some policy, a bit limited, and, you know, the world's trying to catch up to batteries. So we said, "We'll do two devices, a folding scooter..." And we put them in the places that policy allows. So the folding scooter was in the overhead luggage space, you can easily reach by or, or access by, uh, you know, reaching over your head. and we also looked at a e-bicycle and that, has a designated semi-compartmentalized, uh, you know, uh, open on one side, storage space kind of away from passengers.

Wojciech 30:06

Is it outside of the car

Adam Barowy 30:08

or- It's inside the, the rail car. So, like, you would get on... Actually, I've seen the same thing here in, in Belgium and Germany. you get on, as soon as you, enter the doors there's, like, a luggage space right there. Ah,

Wojciech 30:17

okay. Right there. The, okay, before you enter- Mm-hmm the passenger compartment, like a-

Adam Barowy 30:20

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so, you know, it's kind of crazy. You have to take everyone's luggage out to put your bike in. so that's fun to do. But, um- It's at least, you know, separated from passengers by a couple meters. it's unfortunately kind of in the path of the exit, but it's at least kind of away from people. And it keeps it from too close of contact from, like, a lot of combustible materials, like the whole ceiling and seats.

Wojciech 30:45

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 30:45

and then we did one last one, and this one, uh, is, is kind of, you know, the, the one that drives our greatest concern. But, the sit-on-top scooters, just like you'll see in our residential experiments. now we did have a bit of argument at first. We, y- you know, we said, We're gonna put this on because this is, like, the worst-case scenario." And the carrier said, "Uh, it's, we don't allow that by policy, and you'll never see one." And that same person, um, a wonderful guy, sent me a text message the next day as he was taking the train to work of, almost exactly the same device. It, it goes where the wheelchair goes, it can't fit anywhere else, and it has a one-and-a-half kilowatt-hour battery. It's a big battery.

Wojciech 31:21

Yeah.

Adam Barowy 31:21

Uh, so we did two, two experiments with this. So

Wojciech 31:24

he sent the pictures and says, "Okay, approved." Yeah.

Adam Barowy 31:28

Yeah, the surprise to me, though, if you wanna get into results, or I don't know if you wanna, Yeah yeah, so, the surprise to me is you would expect that one to be very bad, and it was the worst. but in general, the other devices that were policy compliant were still,

Smoke Spread Visibility And Toxic Dose

Adam Barowy 31:44

creating issues. So we saw across all the experiments- Mm-hmm from thermal runaway, it was about 19 to 30 seconds. I mean, w- we'll just say effectively within 30 seconds, if the e-mobility device, ignites, flaming ignition, not, not thermal runaway, flaming ignition- Mm-hmm that's critical, We saw smoke spread from one end of the car to the other. So if you're standing up, you're going to be having smoke hitting you in the head on the opposite end of the

Wojciech 32:09

car. So i- in 30 seconds the smoke spread, or in 30 seconds ignition and then the, you see the smoke spread?

Adam Barowy 32:14

30 seconds from flaming ignition.

Wojciech 32:16

30 sec- okay.

Adam Barowy 32:17

Yeah, yeah. So, so this is a, a critical part of, uh, the recommendations we're putting together because it's kind of an advantage when a battery goes into thermal runaway. Let's say it gets hot and it starts smoking, that's a sign people can detect and go, "Okay, I need to leave right now."

Wojciech 32:33

Right.

Adam Barowy 32:34

so we're telling, uh, the conductors and passengers, that's a sign to leave. I mean, maybe, again, you know, your cellphone, I- will anyone take me seriously if I say, "Run away"? Probably not. But an e-bike, an E skateboard, an E scooter, it's run the other way because that smoke stays pretty local. It has no buoyancy. Once it goes flaming, the propagation will probably speed up, and now the smoke has buoyancy, and the buoyancy is what really causes the rapid travel. When you're in a, basically a pipe-

Wojciech 33:04

Mm-hmm

Adam Barowy 33:04

the smoke spread's not radial, it's linear. It's all going one direction. So it, it actually moves, uh, alarmingly fast. And, um, then, uh, you know, the s- so the slowest complete loss of visibility, seven minutes.

Wojciech 33:17

Mm.

Adam Barowy 33:17

Maybe doesn't sound like the end of the world, but that's still pretty fast. Our fastest was about three and a half minutes. Floor to ceiling, no visibility. Th-

Wojciech 33:25

that was in a stopped train, I assume.

Adam Barowy 33:28

For us, the train is stopped, but it doesn't, uh, uh... This, so, we look at required safe egress time and available safe egress time, right? So it doesn't matter for us- Okay the experiment, the train's moving or not.

Wojciech 33:39

But this is another source of the delay because if- Yeah the train was moving and someone pushes the emergency stop, it's still gonna take some time, which-

Adam Barowy 33:47

Mm

Wojciech 33:48

is in the same time scale as that you're describing. Yes. Because I assume it also- Yeah can take a f- few seconds, like I hope it takes more than a few seconds. Yeah. If the train stops in a few seconds, that's gonna be very violent stop.

Adam Barowy 33:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if you hit the emergency stop, it depends on the type of train. the slowdown may not happen immediately. And then there's the evacuation speed. Um, so actually, you know what? I'm sorry, I missed, uh, I mixed up my results. We lost, uh, visibility two minutes in the fastest case. The, um- Okay.

Wojciech 34:15

But the loss of visibi- how, how does it look like? Like- Hmm. Hmm i- is it like a layer that is decaying? Is it like a rapid mixing and like a mist effect in the whole tray? Oh,

Adam Barowy 34:24

no. It, it looks like the, the typical development of a hot gas layer- Okay that you would see in a compartment fire.

Wojciech 34:29

Okay.

Adam Barowy 34:30

It's just happening faster.

Wojciech 34:31

It's just happening faster.

Adam Barowy 34:32

Yeah, yeah. So I, I apologize. I mixed up the fractional effective dose numbers with the visibility numbers. So the visibility numbers are, uh... We have camera, camera at the ceiling, camera at the floor. The floor is losing visibility in the fastest at about two minutes, but the average of about three minutes. Average of three. Uh, the numbers I quoted before though, then that's, uh, fractional effective dose. So, we know people are gonna not be able to see. It's going to- Stuff, yeah impair the egress, just as maybe the train slowing down is gonna impair their egress. But eventually, as people are breathing, uh, CO, reduced oxygen, CO2, uh, we know by fractional effective dose calculations, uh, that they're gonna start being affected in three and a half minutes with the largest device, the seated scooter. F-

Wojciech 35:15

for what value did you go? For FED 1 or 3? Uh, FED 0.3. 0.3, okay.

Adam Barowy 35:20

Uh, which, you know, that, uh... So that's something like 10% of the population becomes incapacitated. Mm-hmm. Now, we chose that because we're looking at the single aisle way, which is not incredibly wide. So if someone is, incapacitated, now they're blocking an exit. If the device is at one exit and an incapacitated person trying to run away is between the other exit, then there's lots of problems for people on board. And e- this egress time is, is far

Wojciech 35:46

shorter. Ha- have, have you measured what was in the smoke? Did you have a lot of hydrofluorides?

Adam Barowy 35:50

Uh, in this case, we actually, uh, we kept it pretty simple. Again, we had one day, so, uh, we did oxygen, CO, CO2. So we kept it, just as, as asphyxiating gases. And from, and,

Wojciech 36:00

and from previous experiments?

Adam Barowy 36:02

from batteries, we know that there's a lot of CO coming straight from the battery, a lot of CO2, uh, a lot of hydrogen, and then a lot of hydrocarbons. So the acute asphyxiation inhalation risk is really the CO and CO2. and in our experiments- Again, we had to run four in one day. We tried to put non-combustible board around everything. Mm-hmm. We wanted just the gas from the immobility device, and then we would say, "Okay, that wouldn't... That non-combustible board wouldn't really be there." it would probably be worse gas production in real life 'cause the fire will spread. It'll be a bigger fire. Okay.

Wojciech 36:37

O- okay. L- let's look fire spread. Uh- Yeah how about secondary item ignitions? How easy would that be because, you know, people travel with luggage?

Adam Barowy 36:45

Mm-hmm. that's a good question. We didn't involve luggage. I think the luggage would become involved, but, I don't think... I don't... To me, it doesn't seem that significant. They're not huge fuel packages. Mm-hmm. When you look at the heating on the wall and the amount of wall surface area that can be involved quickly, I think that's very different. Okay. There, there is a... There must be... I don't actually know the number, but there must be an incredible amount of fire retardant in that plastic because it basically needed direct flame impingement, but it would ignite, and so did the seats. Uh, so much so that, we did end up seeing every test want to head towards flashover, but become ventilation limited, you know, not long after losing visibility.

Wojciech 37:26

Okay.

Adam Barowy 37:26

Yeah.

Wojciech 37:27

I guess you didn't have a calorimetry for that to get the total heat release, right? Yeah.

Adam Barowy 37:31

No, unfortunately we did not.

Wojciech 37:32

Um- You don't carry your giant 20 megawatt hood with you on the truck- just in case?

Adam Barowy 37:37

N- not yet. We, uh, we have- Not yet. We've, we've drawn concepts, but we're not there yet. Yeah, yeah.

Wojciech 37:42

Okay. Cool. Um, y- you also mentioned something like, 10 feet injury, uh, r- radius. Yeah. W- w- what's that?

Adam Barowy 37:48

Uh, I think that tends to be non-intuitive to people. So, well, very reasonable to say if a gas comes out of this and then ignites and the battery's jetting, you know, 10 feet, uh, you know, two and a half meters, whatever, there's risk of thermal incapacitation. So we did see the thermal fractional effective dose. We measured, uh, temperatures and heat fluxes. Uh, that would be within 20 to 60 seconds. so those people would need help to escape. There's a good chance that someone could be injured if they're sitting right next to the device, but the rest of the car actually did not get thermally, to a point where someone would be incapacitated. The smoke was not that hot. It was just high in CO and CO2. I

Wojciech 38:30

mean, it's perhaps not a huge, uh, distance, but if you consider it both ways from the scooter, that's six meters out of 20-meter-long car, so that's a third of the, of the c- of the car. And if you're talking about the highly congested scenario-

Adam Barowy 38:48

Yeah

Wojciech 38:49

that's potentially a lot of people who really don't have where to go.

Adam Barowy 38:53

Yeah, yeah. In fact, the train I took here, um, you know, that radius could include, like, 6 to, 6 to 12 people- Mm-hmm based on just the, the four seats next to me, the two seats across the aisle, and the people standing in the aisle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Wojciech 39:08

Okay. And, uh, now, now, now we're, we're back to the, the hypothesizing- Mm and I'm still thinking about Toronto. w- what, what, what about beyond the, the, the, the car? Like, the station itself, the passenger escape routes. I, I guess while 1 megawatt in a car is a lot, for, uh, a building of this size, I, I guess that's not a big deal, that big deal.

Adam Barowy 39:31

Uh, for the fire protection that's available inside train stations?

Wojciech 39:34

Yeah.

Adam Barowy 39:35

I mean, the incidents that I've seen, I haven't really heard of it challenging any systems. I, I know that the NFPA 130 crowd goes way back and has thought of, uh, a lot of different fire scenarios very carefully. So I, I don't know where this registers on their radar, but relative to a train station, it does not seem like much of a fire.

Wojciech 39:52

I mean, w- we've been designing a lot of, metro stations in Warsaw at least, and we tend to... For every space we've been considering, we've always put a one megawatt, uh, design fire in there, which caused us a lot of trouble, you know, 10 years ago- Yeah because everyone was, "Oh, why are you p- putting, like, one megawatt? There's, like- absolutely no fire source available in this space." So, well, thank you, people. Now everyone- Because you have

Adam Barowy 40:17

a crystal ball, yeah. Yeah,

Wojciech 40:18

yeah. Now, now, now people are... No, it was just, you know, a, a case for robustness. I just figured out, like- one megawatt is not a huge fire and w- we need to have something- Sure for reasons we don't know yet. And, and the reasons came to life right now. But to, to finish my thought- Mm-hmm you know, those fires in, in this large infrastructures were not extremely critical. I- it's, like, unless you're just next to it or unless your head is, like, constantly in the smoke layer for a reason- Yeah or unless you end up in some concealed space, I don't know, end of the station, and you're behind a pillar and the, th- there's only one way to go and that's exactly where the bike is and you're cut off.

Adam Barowy 40:58

Mm-hmm.

Wojciech 40:59

Unless you're in such an unfortunate position, those infrastructures tend to deal very well with one megawatt fires. We were designing

Stations Egress Limits And Design Fires

Wojciech 41:07

them for 15 megawatt train fires.

Adam Barowy 41:09

Do you, do you ever put them in staircases?

Wojciech 41:11

Yes. Okay,

Adam Barowy 41:11

great. Now I feel much better. Yeah, yeah,

Wojciech 41:13

yeah. Uh, like-

Adam Barowy 41:14

Cause that's where we see them being chained. You know, if there's nowhere to store it, all of a sudden it's locked to the, to the handrail in a staircase.

Wojciech 41:21

Yeah. we've done them in staircases. We've done them in corridors, uh, long corridors, underground corridors. I mean, it was j- j- just, you know, a rule of thumb for us. Every space have to, provide a reasonable amount of safety for a one megawatt design fire and, and I just feel so much more comfortable right now that, that- Mm-hmm that, that, that we've done that, which included, you know, uh, smoke control systems in those spaces, and it was really difficult to explain to the client why you need a smoke control space for, uh- a space where you literally have just a concrete- Yeah corridor that's 100 meter long, you know? But-

Adam Barowy 41:53

Yeah. I want to feel good about this too, but you know, those seated scooters, uh, as we've continued to do the research, they're getting harder to find. They're still out there, but it seems like out of practicality people are choosing batteries that are kind of smaller and easier to handle too. So I'm, I'm hoping that it will temper this a little bit.

Wojciech 42:11

Okay.

Adam Barowy 42:12

Uh, I mean, now I sh- I just talked about results where a folding scooter drove results almost as bad as the seated scooter, but that's not a one megawatt fire.

Wojciech 42:20

Mm.

Adam Barowy 42:20

Uh, I forget exactly the numbers, but it was around 500 kilowatts, maybe.

Wojciech 42:25

The one megawatt is, is, uh, around that number, the colleagues from, uh, Germany from IFAB also- Mm-hmm had the number. Mm-hmm. Similar ballpark number I think on the conference that we're today. Tomorrow, Ruth's gonna present, uh, results of their, uh- Yes scooter fires as well. Yeah. I think the ballpark was also similar.

Adam Barowy 42:43

Mm-hmm.

Wojciech 42:44

So it's like a, more like a family of products that kind of get you to this design.

Adam Barowy 42:49

Uh, well, and I have to be honest, I've had to not let it distract me, but, uh, we just saw a presentation earlier this morning from Enrico, about egress ability and the different types of, uh, movement impairments people can have. I was not really doing the w- I mean, I was thinking about someone becoming incapacitated and falling down. None of our results, nor the amount of egress research on passenger evacuations from rail cars is one reference. We found one.

Wojciech 43:15

Okay.

Adam Barowy 43:15

Um, maybe there's one in Polish or German or something, I don't know. But we only found one. and it said that i- under ideal conditions, so there's no smoke, there's no fire. This is stopped at a platform. Both doors are available. It's a minute and, basically a minute and a half.

Wojciech 43:30

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 43:31

less than ideal if they have to, if they stop, on the s- on the side of the railroad tracks is, like, four minutes. But, all of that is with people that are 100% capable of, getting up when the, you know, the, whoever ran the experiment said, "Go." so now if there's any of the uh, movement limitations that Enrico talked about earlier, all the situations far more complicated. Of, of course.

Wojciech 43:53

Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm great that, I'm glad that we're including for, for that in our, considerations for sure. Mm-hmm. So what about the outcomes,

Policy Options Beyond A Total Ban

Wojciech 44:01

Adam? Like, w- w- what was the practical take out of that? Like, did, your, uh, your partner implement your findings in some policies in some way? W- or, or, or you just, uh, high-fived each other and, uh- we're good?

Adam Barowy 44:16

Well, they're, they've shared, uh, internally and now I think they're debating which, policy recommendations to take.

Wojciech 44:22

Okay.

Adam Barowy 44:22

Um, so the, given the newness of the report, it's, it's, uh, like two weeks old, The amount of interest has surged, so, when I return to the United States, I'm going to give a presentation to a, uh, a passenger, transport industry group and From talking to them initially, as well as our Federal Railway Administration, the challenge is the carriers have wanted to make policies that respect the riders have these, have these challenges, right? First and last mile. They've gotta be able to get to the train, and they have to get to the train from probably to work. so they're going to bring these devices. Mm. If you don't allow them, they're just going to stop riding, and they'll lose business, right? So, they have other considerations, to deal with, but we, we kind of order them in our report as, like, most adoptable to least adoptable. Yeah. And so we could say, By policy, do not allow these things in the first or last car because there's only one exit." Um, restrict the size of the devices. That's kind of easy to do, but hopefully a conductor can say

Wojciech 45:24

it. But, but by, by physical dimensions of the device or by battery size? Yeah. Because then

Adam Barowy 45:28

now- Yeah

Wojciech 45:29

we're going back to the problem of your, uh, airport person.

Adam Barowy 45:32

We, we've talked about almost having, like, a top 10 most wanted list kind of poster. Okay. Say, "Not these ones." Yeah, yeah. It's gotta be a visual aid, right? Because again, they're not a customs officer. They don't know- Mm all the details to look for. They just have to say, like, "You can have this little one, not this big one." Yeah. It has to be simple. Um-

Wojciech 45:48

Ban, ban the gravel ones.

Adam Barowy 45:49

Yeah, yeah. And, and what, what's interesting is, uh, it makes you reflect on how a true fire safety solution requires a bunch of pieces of the pie, and a little one's gonna be passenger education.

Wojciech 46:01

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 46:02

So, you know, we have, uh, materials we're working on developing to say, like, be like the seat back insert that you almost never look at on the plane, but some people do.

Wojciech 46:10

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 46:10

And those people will be educated. requiring battery safety certifications on devices. Okay, that- It's not the easiest

Wojciech 46:16

thing to do, but it's

Adam Barowy 46:17

something

Wojciech 46:17

oh, that, that's interesting. Is that happening actually?

Adam Barowy 46:19

In New York City, the way they deal with it is only allowing stores to sell devices. Now, again, uh, what's to say I don't just build one in my basement and bring it onto a train? So we've asked that they, uh, train the conductors to recognize DIY at- Mm the very least 'cause it tends to be pretty obvious. but now recognizing a mark, they're gonna have to look at it. I've heard of rail carriers doing things like creating a sticker. So at some point, you get it inspected, you get a sticker. Uh-huh. Slap the sticker on. Uh-huh. Easier recognition. I don't know if... W- I mean, it remains to be seen-

Wojciech 46:53

Maybe like a bike pass or something.

Adam Barowy 46:55

Yeah. It remains to be seen if they'll go that way, but, uh, yeah, this is the early days of, uh, okay, we have some data. They've been asking for data for a few years. Now we have this data. How can we together develop these, uh, recommendations?

Wojciech 47:11

Yeah, uh, g- going the other way- Yeah perhaps there's also ability to create a, a white list of, of devices which are most likely not an issue, like smaller scooters or, like, I, I, I don't even know.

Adam Barowy 47:21

I, I, I like it. I have to be honest with you, you're the first person to say that.

Wojciech 47:25

Okay.

Adam Barowy 47:25

Yeah, yeah, really I mean, because we're so focused on the bad actors, we say none of these bad actors. but, uh, y- yeah, maybe that's a way. Um,

Wojciech 47:33

yeah. It, it goes back to what you've said to other flammability that, that you're looking for the scenario at which it breaks down, so if you're comfortable with that, you know, level- Yeah you, you have a level u- under which it doesn't break down, and you at least, allow some of those, uh, of those, uh, people to u- Because, like, people are not, uh, collectors of e-bikes. They need them. Mm-hmm. Like, uh, they are heavy, they're clumsy.

Adam Barowy 47:57

Well, a- and, and other carriers have, in concept we've talked, and they've said, "Well, what if we provide, devices or, like, a, a place where people can store their devices safely at the train station when they get to the city end?" You know, probably they're going from the suburbs to the city. There's a loaner.

Wojciech 48:15

Okay.

Adam Barowy 48:15

Then there's none on the train or less on the train.

Wojciech 48:18

Like a city system for- Yeah for e-bikes.

Adam Barowy 48:20

Yeah.

Wojciech 48:21

Th- that's also, like, m- like, we, we have that in also a city system for bikes. A lot of places have that- Mm-hmm where you just rent a bike from the city. They're at the train stations. You exit your train, you can take the bike, and just, like, with the phone, a- and, and, and here you go. Like, a lot of those, um, scooters as well from commercial companies everywhere- Mm-hmm cluttering. Yeah. Actually, I hate it. No, let's not go there. They clutter my city.

Adam Barowy 48:45

But, you know, the, the, the ideal, the... Well, I mean, the, the true ideal is devices which are safer in the future, but, um, looking at the outlook of lithium ion batteries and affordability, it's, it, that's many years away What we've talked about is this, uh, medium long-term solution of, uh, better segregation between people- Mm and bikes. So is it everyone's bike goes in the last car? That's e- a little easier to do i- in an... Okay, so that last car is bikes only or bikes and luggage, and now people are above that car or, you know, uh, further up the train. and then, you know, long-term special bike storage or special device storage, uh, areas.

Wojciech 49:26

Hm.

Adam Barowy 49:26

Yeah, yeah. But that, that requires money, time-

Wojciech 49:30

Systematic solutions

Adam Barowy 49:31

government regulation- Yeah, um probably so.

Wojciech 49:33

it's, it's great to note that, that, that y- you're working on that. So, what are the next steps? Going back to US, gonna burn more trains?

Adam Barowy 49:42

Um, not immediately. I mean, the, the, the immediate step is talk to these, individuals responsible for rail safety, work with them on immediate practical solutions, identify some of the ones that are maybe more effective but take more time. And then, uh, there is interest. I mean, I think what we have, right now is pretty good numbers on available safe time for egress. they're not great.

Wojciech 50:06

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 50:07

We need better numbers on required safe time for egress. And, I'm not a evacuation researcher. I, I am acutely aware now of how complicated it can be after Enrico's, presentation today, but I think we need a, a better understanding to know how much time we need to buy. you know, the ultimate thing would be we'll put every, uh, e-bike in the last car. It will be built like a bomb shelter and nothing can reach the passengers, but that will take time, and we don't have that.

Wojciech 50:33

Well, uh, in, in that case, uh, immediate solution is also to just ban them completely. But it also is not like a, a whole solution to the problem. It is, it is, it is- Yeah it's a possible solution but at a high societal cost, I guess.

Adam Barowy 50:45

I, I think there is societal cost. Um, I, I, I can't keep tabs on every battery thing. I wish I could, but I, I know they've banned them in London. I'm not sure how well the ban is working, but I, I know of a ban in the United States. Uh, the ban was issued.

Wojciech 50:59

Mm-hmm.

Adam Barowy 50:59

And then I've looked up, is it still issued? It's not, and I can't find any history. And so they went as far as ban, and I think it, likely upset the ridership. And so they, they said, "Okay, this is the thing people need, you know, for their livelihood." It's we, we, uh, we now depend on lithium-ion batteries. We cannot-

Wojciech 51:17

I mean, yeah, it is a- there are no batteries it's not a fashion accessory. It, it's- Yeah it, it, it kind of became the necessity in life and this economy. And, and as you, as you said also, uh, a social problem because, uh, y- you may ban it, but then if you have 60,000, uh, low, uh, earners who livelihoods depend entirely on those devices-

Adam Barowy 51:38

Yep

Wojciech 51:39

they're not gonna... They will not care- Well, and,

Adam Barowy 51:41

and- about your

Wojciech 51:41

bans

Adam Barowy 51:42

pe- people are not, uh, if I can say it, they're, they're not idiots. Like, if you ban a battery-powered bicycle, someone might just take the battery off it, put it in their backpack, and put the bicycle in the bicycle rack. Mm. Now the battery's still on the train. It's still the same size battery. And we've talked about this, and I think to some degree seen a little bit of it,

Wojciech 52:03

Interesting.

Adam Barowy 52:03

Yeah.

Wojciech 52:04

Well, Adam, thank you so much for, for bringing this topic, uh, to the Fire Science Journal community. And we're looking forward for, uh, more research on, on lithium-ion battery problems and, and more and beyond, uh, from, uh, UL. And, uh- Yeah I hope to have you here back again soon.

Adam Barowy 52:23

Yeah. Yeah. It's been fun, uh, running around the world trying to get away from you. Oh, you finally cornered me. Yeah. There's n- n- no escape. No, it's good. I, I really appreciate the opportunity to, to share what we're learning. it's exciting and terrifying at the same time. And, uh, you know, this really helps us get the message further.

Wojciech 52:40

And, uh, you're the kings of, of great content, so there's a whole webpage to explore for anyone- Yeah. still listening. Links are in the show notes. You will, you will enjoy the videos and- Yep a lot of great technical content out there.

Adam Barowy 52:51

Yeah. And again, yeah, uh, anyone feel free, you know, use the information, use the, the visuals. please give us credit, but, uh, otherwise, you know, it, it, it's our mission. Uh.

Wojciech 53:01

Thank you, Adam.

Adam Barowy 53:01

Yeah. Thank you.

Closing Takeaways And FSRI Resources

Wojciech 53:03

And that's it. Thank you for listening. As Adam said, I've been chasing him through the world to get this interview It's kind of funny. Uh, when people are very busy like me and Adam, it's difficult to schedule, an interview, and, uh, sometimes an easiest way is just to, you know, attack them with a microphone on a conference which happened this time in Arnhem in the Netherlands where we have been at the NIPV conference last week. Anyway, I'm really happy I got this out of Adam, and there is so much more, you know, ULFR research to go through because these guys are doing such an outstanding work in the world of experimental fire science. Out of this particular, um, research item, I remember I was talking with Adam about burning trains, I think like a year ago. I'm really happy that they had a full-scale, uh, cart to do those experiments. The videos are really good and they're really disturbing at the same time. I mean, the smoke layer moving through and descending in a railway car that fast is, is kind of like shocking. If you have an experience with fires in buildings, perhaps less shocking, just, you know, refreshing that, these, uh, fire dynamics work like that, uh, not in our favor. I think, uh, there are some usable guidance in this episode, the areas at which the scooter poses the hazard, the speed of the f- of the smoke spread within the cart, the urgency of immediate evacuation as soon as a device starts venting and perhaps some guidances to the train operators on what can be loaded in the trains, what should not be loaded in the trains and how to handle it when you're unable to ban everything which perhaps is not an immediately best, uh, outcome. I, I don't know. It's, it's difficult societal problem. It's where, you know, the fire safety regulations meet the needs of society and expectations of the users. As Adam said, if you ban batteries on scooters and someone just conceals the battery within their backpack because they pretend to have a, a battery-free scooter out there in the m- in the train, you've changed nothing and, perhaps made the situation even more dangerous because now you may not see those first, uh, in- indications of battery venting off or something going wrong with it. So as usual, we need the systematic answers, not the immediate bans because those very rarely end up well in the world of fire safety. Anyhow, that would be it for, uh, today's Fire Science Show episode. I hope you've learned something new. I hope you enjoyed that. The material at the FSRI page is absolutely outstanding, so I highly recommend going through the report, going through the videos. You will learn even more. Share that with people who, who, who are dealing with, uh, railway fire safety in your country. Perhaps this will be useful to someone and will help people manage this new hazard that, uh, we are forced to deal with. Uh, that's it for today's episode and I am looking forward to see you here in the Fire Science Show next Wednesday. Thank you. Cheers. Bye.