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Passenger
Ships
Helicopter
Landing Areas
The
MSC approved revisions of SOLAS regulation III/28.2 which will require
only ro-ro passenger ships of 130m in length and upwards
built on/after 1 July 1999 to be fitted with an approved helicopter
landing area. This was based on the conclusions of two trial safety
assessments which could not justify, in terms of the cost effectiveness
of the measure in reducing risk, the fitting of a helicopter landing
area on passenger ships.
The
revised regulation, upon its expected adoption by MSC 72 in May
2000 and scheduled entry into force in October 2001, will repeal
the current amendment, which goes into force on 1 July 1999 as per
MSC.47(66). As such, there will be a period where non ro-ro passenger
ships should technically be fitted with a approved helicopter landing
area.
To
facilitate continued operation of these ships in accordance with
SOLAS, MSC/Circ.907 was issued requesting Administrations to recognize
the inconsistency. 3.20
Evacuation
Analysis Methodology
Simplified
evacuation analysis guidelines for ro-ro passenger ships contained
in MSC/Circ.909 was approved. The guidelines are considered to be
interim recognizing that computerized analytical techniques are
still under development and need to be calibrated against full scale
tests to incorporate findings on human behavioral patterns. The
Circular provides a performance to be met at night and day time
with different assumptions for passenger awareness as indicated
in the following figure.
Procedures
to estimate ideal travel time vs arrangement of embarkation route
and passenger density is also provided. 5.2
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