The total number of persons that might occupy a building or portion thereof at any one time.

• A. Occupant Load
• B. Load-Bearing Element
• C. Hotel
• D. Incapacitation

Answer: (A)

Occupant load is the maximum number of people that can occupy a building or a portion of it at one time. This measure is used in life safety planning to size means of egress, such as the number of exits, width of stairs and doors, and required travel distances, by applying occupant density factors to the space’s area. In practice, you multiply the floor area by the occupant load factor for that space’s intended use to determine how many people the space must be able to safely evacuate.

The other terms refer to different concepts: a load-bearing element is a structural member that supports loads, a hotel is a type of occupancy category, and incapacitation relates to an individual's ability to function, not to how many people a space can hold.