Alerting owners to the sound of safe evacuation

The independent trials of what is a major advantage in passenger ship safety were completed at Ardossan in Scotland last week. Caledonian MacBrayne allowed one of its ferries to be used for the trials, which were conducted under the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency and University of Strathclyde supervision. The Sound Alert system uses directional sound technology to speed up exit times in case of smoke and fire. Low location lighting works well in incidents where the evacuee can see, but unfortunately many furnishings and coatings onboard ships burn with an acrid smoke that will stop most opening their eyes let alone allowing them to see. The other problem is that it forces people down to the level of the lighting, which is fine if that is the only place that there is any air, but evacuation is all about speed and crawling around on your hands and knees is not going to get you out quickly. It also poses a safety risk if not everybody wants to crawl. Preliminary results of the evacuation trials pretty much confirmed what Sound Alert and the MCA already knew – that it was quicker evacuating from smoke filled corridors and public spaces using the Localizer beacons that transmit broadband multi-frequency (white noise) sound. The tests confirmed evacuation was sped up by as much as 60% in smoke filled corridors. It was interesting to watch an infrared video of an evacuation in progress where the sound beacons were not used. The participants initially worked together as a group, but after not being able to find the exit they started to break up and scatter. Results of a questionnaire after the scenario showed that they had also lost confidence in their abilities, as even though they had reached the escape exit one participant said they did not open the door because it said crew quarters and another said the door was locked, which it wasn?t. The ones that found the exit took over five minutes to escape and five participants finally had to be shown the way out. In a real emergency they would probably have died. With the Localizer beacons operating it took participants less than two minutes to evacuate from the same scenario. Sound Alert had a blind participant and although his dog did not want to enter the smoke, the man went through without him and had no difficulties completing the evacuation within a relatively short space of time. Sound Alert has been working on trying to get equivalency to low location lighting for its system but it appears that this might be met with some resistance because of the worry that some authorities might demand that ships be fitted with both. Ronnie Allen, naval architect and marine surveyor in the passenger ship and high speed craft branch of the MCA told The Motor Ship that the answer might be to look at where LLL falls down, something he describes as “the gap in technology”. This is in public spaces where the quickest route through them is not round the edges but straight across them, which is where the Localizer beacons could help. However the system gets adopted, it can only be a good thing for the improved safety of passenger ships. The Motor Ship recommends that owners try if for themselves – they will be amazed at how simple it is to follow and understand.