An evacuation model considering pedestrian fall behavior in an inclined passenger ship

Yaping Ma, Gangqiang Zhang and Feizhou Huo

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2024, vol. 643, issue C

Abstract: Passenger ships are likely to be inclined during and after accidents, which is a vital factor that affects pedestrian behaviors and crowd dynamics in the evacuation process. On a significantly inclined ship, pedestrian fall behavior becomes more complex, increasing the risk of stampedes. Nevertheless, this type of evacuation has rarely been investigated. In this study, an extended cellular automata (CA) model that meets the inherent characteristics of passenger ship evacuations is constructed. The inclination force and self-adjusting force are incorporated into the model to evaluate the balance mechanism of pedestrians, while a method to calculate the probability of pedestrians falling down is established by considering the ship heeling angle and pedestrian heterogeneity. Further, the state of the pedestrians after falling to the ground is analyzed. A hazard field is introduced to describe the interaction between normal pedestrians and fallen pedestrians. The simulation results show that deaths occur when the ship heeling angle is greater than 20° and the crowd is evacuated successfully and fastest at the ship heeling angle of 5°, even better than on the flat ground. The greater the ship heeling angle, the more likely pedestrians are to fall over, and the earlier the first death occurs, thereby resulting in longer evacuation time and increased fatalities. The heterogeneity of passengers has considerable effects on the effectiveness of the ship evacuation, with a greater proportion of strong-resistance pedestrians reducing the crowd death and fall risks, even though the influence of crowd constitution on crowd evacuation time is insignificant. The death toll and evacuation time increased with the initial number of pedestrians aboard the ship. This study is beneficial in terms of understanding the evolution mechanism of evacuation dynamics and developing effective strategies for crowd emergency management on large passenger vessels.

Keywords: Pedestrian evacuation; Ship inclination; Extended CA model; Fall behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:643:y:2024:i:c:s0378437124003030

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2024.129794

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