# Analysis of the Impact of Small Group Behavior on Cruise Ship Emergency Evacuation
## 6 Conclusions and Discussion  
Based on the basic social force model, this study considers the evacuation characteristics of different passengers, including evacuation speed, response time, and initial distribution. A simulation model of passenger evacuation on a cruise ship is constructed using Anylogic 8.8.1 software. Two different evacuation methods and the impact of group behavior on passenger evacuation time and congestion areas are studied. The simulation results are as follows:  
(1) After an emergency occurs, there is a significant difference in the time required for passengers to reach their destination under the two evacuation methods. Method II, which involves reaching the closest assembly point, has a shorter evacuation time. Therefore, cruise ship personnel should choose the appropriate evacuation method based on the urgency of the accident to achieve a reasonable evacuation time.  
(2) Group behavior inhibits the efficiency of assembly for passengers under different evacuation methods, and it increases the variation range of assembly time. Moreover, the congestion area of passenger ships with and without group influence is the same, while the influence of group factors on the formation moment and duration of congestion area is more complicated, mainly related to the location of congestion area and the response time of group members.  
(3) Under the effect of the group factor, due to the behavior of small groups waiting for their group members to leave, the response time of the group becomes the maximum response time among all members within the group. As a result, passengers do not evacuate simultaneously, and group effects reduce the duration of congestion. When the group is located near the gathering station, this group waiting behavior will prevent the rear passengers from evacuating and cause the congestion duration to increase.  
(4) Group behavior increases the average detour distance for personnel, which greatly increases the disorderliness of emergency evacuation on the cruise ship and lowers the overall evacuation efficiency.  
Figure 12: Detour distance with and without groups.  
The limitation of this paper is that in exploring the influence of small groups on evacuation time and congestion area, only the influence of a specific proportion of group factors on evacuation is proposed, but the specific trend of the influence of small group sizes of two, three, and four people on evacuation time is not confirmed.  
Of course, further research could be conducted to expand the scope of the study. In future research, it is expected that further experimental studies will be conducted from the perspective of small group size to expand the existing data and summarize the law of small group size influence on evacuation efficiency.  
Conceptualization, X.Z. and Z.X.; methodology, X.Z. and Z.X.; software, X.Z. and Z.X.; formal analysis, X.Z.; resources, S.W.; writing--original draft preparation, X.Z.; writing--review and editing, H.Z.; supervision, H.Z.; project administration, H.Z. and W.Z.; Funding acquisition, S.W.; Validation, W.Z.; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
We express our gratitude to [PERSON].  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.