A maritime safety on-board decision support system to enhance emergency evacuation on ferryboats

Planning emergency evacuation operations in a proactive manner in public marine transportation systems is a critical success factor for passenger and crew safety. Despite the fact that there is a growing attention on safety issues for marine transportation systems, providing a real-time decision support for evacuation planning under different emergency conditions has not yet been addressed. In this context, this paper contributes to the related literature by providing a comprehensive methodology including simulation and statistical analysis along with a three-module decision support system (DSS) for ferryboat emergency evacuation. Emergency evacuation and fire environment are simulated via Maritime EXODUS V5.1 and SMARTFIRE V4.3, respectively. The methodology is applied to a real-life Ro-Ro ferry, and the results not only revealed significant factors on emergency evacuation performance, but also demonstrated the validity of the developed decision support system.     

Studies on emergency evacuation management for maritime transportation

Marine transportation is a vital component of the world’s economy and transportation network. The number of people using passenger ships around the globe is increasing worldwide. Similar to other transportation systems, passenger safety is critical in maritime shipment. As emergency evacuation processes for ships are highly different from and more complicated than those for buildings and other vehicles, many researchers have published a vast range of documents related to this peculiar research area. However, there is a tangible lack of sufficient literature review studies that investigate marine emergency evacuation (MEE). That being the case, the potential of marine transportation and the effect of emergency evacuation operation on life safety have inspired the proposal of this study. This paper offers a review of the available literature on MEE modelling, analysis and planning during the period from 1973 to 2017 using a systematic approach. After reviewing relevant academic journals, peer-reviewed conference papers, and technical reports of agencies, relevant literature is analysed. In addition, the literature review is extended by means of proposing a framework methodology which considers different possible conditions and situations during MEE. Finally, insights for ship managers and policymakers are discussed and potential future research directions are identified.