EVI™ is a pedestrian dynamics software tool designed specifically for application within the ship design spiral. First released in 2000, EVI™ has a long history of supporting designers and shipyards in analysing ship evacuation procedures and in understanding the effect of ship layout on evacuation and highlighting areas of congestion.

EVI™ provides rapid modelling of the environment, prebuilt demographics for the standard IMO Day and Night cases so that analysing a ship design against regulatory requirements is quick and easy. The outputs are visual representations of the simulations which are intuitive to analyse, and a vast array of numerical results in graphs and tables that can support detailed analysis.

Regulatory background

IMO rules for evacuation analysis have until recently applied only to Ro-Pax ships. However, from January 2020, all passenger ships (in addition to Ro-Ro passenger ships) carrying more than 36 people and with keel laid on or after the same date have to prove adequate evacuation times through an evacuation analysis. Shipyards and designers now need to show that their design meets the IMO performance standard which is the time taken to both muster and abandon ship. This performance standard is defined as 60 minutes for Ro-Pax ships or ships with three main vertical zones or less, and 80 minutes for ships with more than three main vertical zones.

Beyond evacuation

EVI™ ‘s value is not limited to evacuation analysis, as the software comes with a flexible scripting interface that can control the simulation down to the behaviour and objective of each agent within the simulation. In this mode, EVI™ has been used to analyse and optimise port layouts, to analyse ship disembarkation and to improve the efficiency of shift patterns during shipbuilding.

Exploded deck view in EVI™

Benefits and features

• IMO compliant: Compliant with the latest IMO regulations on passenger ship evacuation, MSC 96: Revised guidelines on evacuation analysis for new and existing passenger ships (MSC.1/Circ.1533).
• Semi-continuous space: EVI™’s simulation engine is based on semi-continuous space modelling, enabling the exact definition of layout and removing the need for spatial approximation of grid-based solutions.
• Rapid modelling: Through its companion software EVE™, modelling large and complex vessels or structures is fast and easy to learn.
• Flexible: Through scripting, EVI™ can simulate any passenger or crew situation requiring analysis.
• IMO distributions: Preloaded with IMO Day and Night demographics, and the flexibility to modify them to any situation.
• Batch running: Enables the easy execution of multiple simulations to calculate the 95th percentile solution for evacuation times.
• Visualisation: Every simulation can be reviewed in full 3D, with exploded views, so that passenger and crew behaviour is easy to understand.
• Design spiral: Used throughout the design spiral, EVI™ can support designers in optimising the layout for evacuation and in analysing various types of passenger behaviour.

Example Simulation

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