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Cruise ships like buildings: Wayfinding solutions to improve emergency evacuation

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Abstract

This research aims at demonstrating that wayfinding solutions can improve the effectiveness of the evacuation processes in complex architectural spaces such as those of cruise ships. We investigated the behaviours of passengers in maritime disaster to figure out whether people act similarly during buildings egress and ships evacuation. Data were collected through questionnaires administered in 2015 to passengers boarding various cruise ships at the port of Ancona (Italy), and through the analysis of real footage of the evacuation of the Costa Concordia. The open source software Fire Dynamics Simulator with Evacuation (FDS+EVAC), used in building egress analyses, was adapted to include these behavioural and event information such as familiarity with ship layout, ship rotation and lifeboats boarding. Simulation results on the case study confirmed similarities between ships and buildings evacuations, underlining the effectiveness of wayfinding solutions to improve passengers’ evacuation flows and routes selection. This study also demonstrated that computer simulation could benefit the ship design process, the preparation of safety guidelines, and the crewmembers during naval emergency management training.

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Acknowledgements

This study was carried out in collaboration with the Court of Grosseto and benefited from the generous contributions of many individuals. Authors would like to express their particular gratitude to Professor Dalle Mese from the University of Pisa, who was appointed expert by the judge during the preliminary investigations of the Costa Concordia disaster. His help and contribution in the collection of documents was crucial. A special thanks goes also to Luciano Ceccacci, Captain of the Port of Ancona for his advices and his guidance with this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (DISVA), Università Politecnica delle Marche, via di Brecce Bianche, 60131, Ancona, Italy

    Cristina Casareale & Fausto Marincioni

  2. Department of Construction, Civil Engineering and Architecture (DICEA), Università Politecnica delle Marche, via di Brecce Bianche, 60131, Ancona, Italy

    Gabriele Bernardini & Marco D’Orazio

  3. Humanitarian Conflict and Response Institute (HCRI), University of Manchester, Ellen Wilkinson Building, Manchester, M15 6JA, UK

    Andrea Bartolucci

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  1. Cristina Casareale
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  2. Gabriele Bernardini
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  3. Andrea Bartolucci
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  4. Fausto Marincioni
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  5. Marco D’Orazio
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Correspondence to Gabriele Bernardini.

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Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM): supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0381-0.

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Casareale, C., Bernardini, G., Bartolucci, A. et al. Cruise ships like buildings: Wayfinding solutions to improve emergency evacuation. Build. Simul. 10, 989–1003 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0381-0

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