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Ship Evacuation Simulation : Challenges and Solutions

In the wake of major maritime disasters such as the Herald of Free Enterprise and the Estonia, (and several offshore rig disasters), and in light of the growth in the numbers of high density, high-speed ferries and large capacity cruise ships, issues concerned with the evacuation of passengers and crew at sea are receiving renewed interest. The High Speed Code introduced the concept of performing critical path analysis of the evacuation arrangements, SOLAS regulation II2/28-1para 3 required Ro-Ro passenger ships built after 1 July 1999 to have an early design stage evacuation analysis performed and more recently IMO has developed and issued Guidelines for a Simplified Evacuation Analysis on RoRo passenger vessels[1]. However, emphasis to date has been on the physical arrangements with little consideration of the human, behavior and environmental factors associated with emergency evacuation. IMO has also recently started to develop guidelines for more detailed simulation tools for analyzing evacuation from passenger ships. This paper describes the development of such a tool and aspects associated with the collection of marine specific human performance data. The simulation of evacuation requires quite complex modeling of human behavior and the environment, and a number simulation tools have been developed in other industries. The wellestablished EXODUS evacuation model suites used in the building and aviation sectors are described and are the basis for the development of a ship evacuation model. The newly developed models have a high level of sophistication in handling of human performance, accounting for population variance, decision-making, and the interaction of people with various environmental factors. However, in order to accommodate the variety of ship based scenarios – such as movement of passengers and crew on heeled passageways – it is essential that appropriate human performance data is collected and incorporated within these models The paper describes a unique experimental facility that has been constructed to assist in this data collection. 1 President, Fleet Technology Limited, Kanata, Ontario, Canada 2 Director, Fire Safety Engineering Group, University of Greenwich, London, UK. INTRODUCTION In the wake of major maritime disasters such as the Herald of Free Enterprise and the Estonia, as well as several offshore rig disasters, and in light of the growth in the numbers of high density, high-speed ferries and large capacity cruise ships, there is a growing interest in the marine industry in issues of evacuation of passengers and crew at sea. The High Speed Code introduced the concept of performing critical path analysis of the evacuation arrangements, SOLAS regulation II-2/28-1para 3 required Ro-Ro passenger ships built after 1 July 1999 to have an early design stage evacuation analysis performed and more recently IMO has developed and issued Guidelines for a Simplified Evacuation Analysis on Ro-Ro passenger vessels [1]. IMO has established standard times for evacuation from passenger vessels, and owners are required to demonstrate compliance through full-scale tests. Demonstrating compliance with evacuation requirements through full-scale evacuation exercises is expensive and difficult to organise, and the circumstances bear little resemblance to what would happen in a true, emergency-driven evacuation. Consequently this form of proof of concept is more of an index allowing comparative evaluation, but providing little indication of what might happen in a real emergency. This is recognised by the community, and it has been accepted that simulation-based evacuation analysis tools are the way of the future. There is, therefore, considerable interest in the development of