Abstract: In order to improve evacuation efficiency of cruises after emergencies and to optimize their spatial layout, an evacuation model, including spatial topological relationship model and tourist evacuation behavior model, was constructed. Then, with certain cruise as an example, optimization suggestions were put forward based on simulated evacuations under different scenarios. The results show that the bottleneck of cruise evacuation lies in stairs, and increasing stair width can improve evacuation efficiency, but not indefinitely. It has more significant effects to improve efficiency by increasing flow velocity of staircases than that of floors. And an increase in evacuation exits can also raise overall efficiency, but such increase magnitude is related to exit locations and tourist distributions. Better evacuation can only be achieved when exits can evenly serve tourists.

Key words: cruise, emergency evacuation, layout optimization, spatial topological relationship, stair width