INNOVATIVE TOOLS FOR THE ADVANCED EVACUATION ANALYSIS OF PASSENGER SHIPS

The current trend for the new cruise ships is toward giant constructions having a degree of more and more enhanced complexity, along with an increased number of passengers and crew members. The Regulations in force concerning safety matters ("Safe Return to Port") are mainly addressed in increasing the intrinsic survival capability of the ship in event of fire or flooding below a predefined threshold. When the casualty threshold is exceeded an orderly evacuation and abandonment of the ship shall be guaranteed. Lessons learnt by the grounding of the "Costa Concordia" have shown that only a proper planning of the evacuation is the basic premise to ensure a safe abandonment of the ship. Nowadays, the evacuation analysis is imposed only for ro-ro passenger ships. Meanwhile, the IMO has decided some amendments to both SOLAS and FSS Code in order to make mandatory the evacuation analysis also for new passenger ships, starting from February 2016. Innovative tools for the advanced evacuation analysis, which take into account the different human factors affecting the movement of a crowd in great agitation, are presented. A thorough analysis for a passenger ship is carried out, and the performance standard, which expresses the capability of the ship in terms of time necessary for its evacuation and abandonment, is checked.