Evacuation Safety on Ships Through 360 Virtual Tour Familiarization

In the maritime industry, it is common for crew members to be unfamiliar with their workplace until they are on board. This limits evacuation time, which is critical in emergency situations such as fire or shipwreck. The aim of this work is therefore to enhance the preparedness and safety of new crew members by enabling them to become familiar with the location of escape routes before boarding the ship. For this purpose, the use of 360 technology is proposed. A 360 tour is a virtual, interactive experience that allows users to explore a location as if they were physically there. On a ship, this allows the crew to know the escape routes and make quicker and safer decisions on the most appropriate route. This paper shows how a 360 tour was developed and tested on a merchant vessel. The evacuation time from the engine room has been measured for a group of people. The results showed that the 360 tour had a very positive impact on the evacuation time for these people who had not previously been physically present in the area.