A quantitative study of the factors influencing human evacuation from ships

Due to the constraints of various factors influencing human evacuation on board, it remains a challenging problem to accurately quantify the impact of these factors on the evacuation process. To analyse the multiple influential factors of human evacuation from ships, a specific framework based on orthogonal experiments is proposed in this paper to comprehensively investigate the impact of multiple factors on the evacuation time and the efficiency of the evacuation process. Heeling angles, unavailable stairs, and priorities of evacuees are identified as influential factors according to the characteristics of human evacuation from ships. The analysis results show that the heeling angle has a very significant effect on both evacuation time and efficiencies, and the efficiencies decrease as the heeling angle increases. Unavailable stairs also have a significant effect on evacuation results, the magnitude of which depends on the number of stairs nearby. While the effect of priorities of evacuees on evacuation results is relatively less important, it can be found that priority evacuation of pedestrians with impaired mobility will aid to achieve optimal evacuation results. In conclusion, the findings of this study can help managers quickly develop effective evacuation strategies in emergencies to further improve the safe operation of passenger ships.