Analysis of Walking-speed of Cruise ship Passenger for Effective Evacuation in Emergency

Abstract

In Korea, people are paying growing attention to leisure activities on ships as they grow wealthy, and as a result, the volume of passenger ships and the number of passengers are on the rise. In case of emergency such as fire, evacuation on a cruise ship is different from other buildings due to unique spatial characteristics(e.g. evacuation route) and other factors(e.g. the ship's movement). For this reason, a special evacuation plan is needed in consideration of passengers’ walking on a ship. Passengers of a cruise ship without an experience of on-board life participated in the experiment for comparative analysis of walking speed along the corridors(horizontal walking) and stairs(vertical walking) that are used as evacuation path in case of a marine emergency. For the experiment, the participants’ movements along the designated horizontal and vertical routes were recorded by several CCTVs, and recorded videos were analysed to calculate walking speed based on the distance between two baselines and the time it took to cross them. For horizontal walking, walking speed dropped by 13.5% when the ship was sailing than when at berth; particularly, in sections that are partly narrowed with obstacles, walking speed fell sharply by 20∼25%. For vertical walking, the ship's movements had less impact on walking speed, and downward walking was faster than upward walking by 20% for both when the ship was at sea and at berth. By age, participants ages 60 and over walked slowest for both horizontal and vertical walking. When the ship was sailing, its movements affected walking speed by age less for horizontal walking than for vertical walking. By gender, speed difference was relatively smaller when the ship was at sea, and men's walking speed was more affected by the ship's movements. Further research is needed on evacuation speed in a simulation of an actual marine emergency such as fire, as well as research on pre-evacuation time in consideration of sleeping facilities within a ship.