Numéro : 2384 - Year : 2001
SPECS: a mustering simulation tool for the evacuation of passenger vessels
Jean-Yves PRADILLON, IRCN
Michel FERRY, MFRDC
Ship evacuation, in case of disaster, is of a main concern today. This is particularly true for Passenger Vessels, for which is critical, but will probably become a requirement for other kinds of ship. The owners and regulations are demanding the yards to be aware of the evacuation process and to take it into account within the design stage. A simulation tool can let the designer able to optimise the evacuation paths while finding out bottlenecks, influence of obstacles and adequacy of space design together with the role of the crew.
The paper will introduce a quick review of the present international regulations. An overview of the tools used in aerospace and civil engineering industries will also be introduced. The evacuation process itself can be seen as a crowd flow moving into a defined and closed stream of spaces. A simulation tool must include:
The description of spaces: geometry, ship position (as non horizontal decks due to the disaster), ship state (fires, blocked paths) emergency signs.
The actors (passengers and crew): health, moral, intelligence, group behaviour (family) and awareness.
The implemented method in the SPECS project is based on the multi-agent approach. Each agent is provided with a complete autonomy allowing choice of the direction and speed to reach goals which are updated on a time step basis upon external conditions such as obstacles, other agents vicinity and so on. A set of human behaviours is included in the model leading to real rational and non-rational decisions as far as each agent has its own perception of the real world. The paper concludes with the foreseen test plan and perspectives such as embarkation-disembarkation, crowd flows around ship show rooms or red code situations on board military vessels.
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