Journal of the Operational Research Society (2001) 52, 401±408 #2001 Operational Research Society Ltd.

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Assessing systems for offshore emergency evacuation

GI Mould*
University of Stirling, UK

Emergency evacuation is a rare event in the offshore oil industry. Nonetheless, emergency procedures must be practiced
routinely for the bene®t of the work force and the emergency services. These practices typically take place in good
weather conditions where there is little threat to those involved. However, in reality an emergency could occur in adverse
weather conditions which can affect the capabilities of vessels and helicopters. This paper describes a study in which the
data from various sources are synthesised in order to estimate the effectiveness of emergency evacuation and rescue
systems in a stochastic environment. The study employed a discrete event simulation incorporating a model of the
evacuation and rescue operations interfaced with a ®le of weather data. This approach provided a measure, the probability
of completing the evacuation within N hours, for the comparison of alternative systems.

Keywords: simulation; oil; emergency; offshore

Introduction time span, usually a few minutes. The signi®cant wave

The emergency evacuation of an offshore oil installation is
fortunately a rare event. There have been two major
incidents,1,2 and a number of minor events, in the offshore
oil industry. Data are available from these incidents but
they inevitably describe a very speci®c set of conditions.
When assessing the suitability of a proposed emergency
evacuation and rescue (EER) system a range of possible
conditions need to be considered. The effectiveness of
various procedures is tested in emergency drills which are
routinely practiced by the rescue services. These drills
provide useful experience for the personnel and also data
on aspects such as the time to search for, and rescue, people
from the sea. Considerable data are available from such
practices on the response and rescue times in good condi-
tions and computer simulations have been developed using
this data,3,4 but less is known about the effects of adverse
weather. However data are available from other sources:
the search and rescue services and the Royal National
Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) have records which constitute a
vast data set covering a wide range of locations and
weather conditions. Using these various sources it is
possible to extrapolate the experience of the offshore
industry's trials in good conditions to provide estimates
of the likely response times in poor weather.
The major environment parameters considered were the
wind speed and the wave height, as measured by the
signi®cant wave height, which is de®ned as the average
height of the one-third highest waves observed in a short
*Correspondence: GI Mould, Department of Management and Organiza-
tion, The Faculty of Management, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA,
Scotland, UK.
E-mail: manorg@stir.ac.uk
height re¯ects the general state of the sea; high values
indicate a large relative motion between ¯oating objects,
preventing any lifting, or coupling operations. The safe
working conditions for many weather-sensitive rescue
activities may be approximately speci®ed by critical
values of signi®cant wave height. The limiting conditions
for the operation of helicopters and rescue craft are de®ned
in terms of signi®cant wave height and wind speed. Data
describing the weather and sea state at 1 h intervals for a 212
year period were employed as a basis for comparing the
effectiveness of different evacuation systems. The key
requirement is for the evacuation to be completed within
the anticipated survival time for a person in the water
equipped with a survival suit.
Emergency procedures offshore
The procedures that must be followed in an offshore
emergency are well documented.5 A number of events
could give rise to an emergency evacuation of an offshore
structure, for example: ®re; explosion; structural damage
caused by collision with another vessel. In the event of an
emergency the crew make their way to the safe haven: this
is a specially constructed area of the rig which is blast proof
and designed to withstand several hours of ®re. Here the
workforce can survive for some time whilst awaiting
rescue; they will have time to put on survival suits and
life jackets. The preferred method of escape from the safe
haven is by helicopter. However, some structures may
exhibit an excessive motion in adverse weather conditions
preventing helicopter landing or winch operations. If the
incident develops such that the safe haven is no longer safe,
then the work force must escape to the sea. This will be by
402 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 52, No. 4
lifeboat or directly into the sea. Conventional lifeboats are
lowered into the water but others are designed to free
fall.6,7 However, the emergency may be such that the
lifeboats have become damaged, inaccessible or there is
insuf®cient time to make them operational. Environmental
conditions may be too bad for launch, with a high risk of
the lifeboat smashing into the structure. In these circum-
stances the work force must escape directly into the sea,
preferably with the aid of chutes or ladders. Wearing
survival suits, people can be expected to survive in the
cold waters of the North Sea for some hours whilst awaiting
the response of the rescue services. Without such aids, it is
unusual to survive for more than a few hours in summer
and only a matter of minutes in winter.
Rescue form the sea is either by helicopter or fast rescue
craft (FRC). Helicopters are part of the search and rescue
service, while FRCs are launched from the standby support
vessels. FRCs can be on the scene quickly in good condi-
tions since standby ships are usually located within a 5 mile
radius of the structure.
The effects of adverse weather
Rescue by helicopter is relatively weather insensitive.
Helicopter ¯ying can take place in all but the most extreme
winds with the ability to ¯y being little affected by wind
strength, although the speed is reduced when ¯ying into a
head wind. Sophisticated station keeping technology means
that a helicopter can hover in a static location despite high
winds. However, when rescuing from the sea, winching
operations are affected by the size of waves. High waves
make the location of personnel in the sea more dif®cult and
winching times increase sharphy as a wave heights
increase. Winching operations are only halted when there
is a threat to the safety of the winch man, such as danger
of drowning in high waves or being blown against the
structure.
Rescue by FRC is more weather-sensitive. The limiting
factors are the launch and recovery of the craft from the
standby vessel. The nominal limit for this is a signi®cant
wave height of 5.5 m, though these operations have been
performed in wave heights of up to 7 m.8 FRCs can operate
in quite adverse conditions, though the main problem is
visibility when trying to locate survivors in high seas.
Variability in emergency evacuation and rescue
operations
When modelling EER situations there is the potential for a
large number of variables to be taken into account. Firstly
there is the incident itself, which could be due to collision,
®re or blast. The nature of the incident will contribute to its
speed of development as will the established emergency
procedures and the actions of the crew. The nature of the
incident will determine whether evacuation or escape is
required. If escape is necessary then the location of the
incident will dictate whether lifeboats can be used or
escape is to be made directly to the sea. The number or
personnel involved will re¯ect the type of structure: a small
drilling rig may have a crew of less than 10 while a large
production platform could have over 200 personnel. The
structure itself may also respond to the weather. For
example, the motion of ¯oating structures in adverse
weather may well be suf®cient to prevent a helicopter
landing. Lastly, the geographical location of the structure
will lead to differences in the prevailing environmental
conditions: sea areas to the west of Shetland are charac-
terised by big waves from the Atlantic whereas the northern
North Sea has a tendency for strong winds. The geogra-
phical location will also affect the availability of rescue
services: structures sited just 50 miles offshore may be
close to an onshore base of helicopters while others may
be relatively isolated, distant from the shore-based facilities
and also with limited standby vessel facilities.
Data availability
One problem encountered in modelling disaster situations
is, fortunately, the lack of real data from actual events.
There have been 2 major offshore rescues: Ocean Ranger in
1982 and Piper Alpha in 1987, plus a number of minor
incidents. These are well documented and provide useful
information for improving the reliability of safety proce-
dures.1,2 However, this information is for the speci®c
operational, geographical and environmental conditions of
the particular incidents. As indicated above, there is a large
number of variables to consider in any rescue situation and
hence a sizeable database of experience is required.
In addition to the data from offshore EER incidents,
information is available for most installations based on the
emergency drills which are routinely undertaken. These
drills cover escape to the safe haven in a variety of
conditions, for example in smoke. Escape to lifeboats and
the unmanned lowering of lifeboats is practised in emer-
gency drills. Although escape to the sea is not practised on
location, it is an integral part of the safety training course
taken by all offshore personnel. Rescue from the sea is
practised with the aid of life-sized dummies but such drills
are only undertaken in good weather conditions as there is
no wish to put personnel at risk. Consequently, data for this
exercise is only available for response and rescue times
undertaken in good conditions and little is known about the
effects of adverse weather conditions. Once an EER opera-
tion moves into the escape phase, the operation has simila-
rities to other offshore rescues. Substantial databases of
rescue incidents exist, maintained by the RNLI, the air ± sea
rescue services and the Standby Ships Operators Associa-
tion. These sources provide a means of determining the
feasibility and response times for various procedures in a
large range of environmental conditions.

Further experience relevant to EER can be obtained from
a considerable body of knowledge on the effects of lethargy
and panic in emergency situations compiled from a range of
incidents, not only offshore oil.8,9 This is useful in model-
ling the human response in the initial phases of the
emergency.
Methodology
In an emergency there is a pre-speci®ed routine for the crew
to follow which re¯ects the nature and location of the
emergency situation. Once the alarm has been raised, the
rescue services will also follow their appropriate set proce-
dures. There are uncertainties about the duration of speci®c
activities and the possibility of alternative courses of
action. However, the situation to be modelled is essentially
a sequence of events and could thus be modelled as a form
of stochastic project network. The uncertainty surrounding
the duration of events, the weather-sensitive nature of
certain activities and the inherent uncertainty of the
weather can all be incorporated into the model by using
the technique of project risk analysis. Discrete event
simulation was adopted as this provided a more ¯exible
modelling medium which allows the addition of a rule base.
For example, rules are required to modify the ¯ying speed
of helicopters as the wind speed increases. Similarly the
operation of FRCs is heavily weather dependent and rules
are required to determine whether conditions are suitable
for their use. This approach has previously been found
useful for evacuation modelling.10,11 Witness12 simulation
software was used since it provides a robust and rapid
development environment. The package offers valuable
features such as a graphical display and user interface, an
easy interaction with ®les of weather data and an experi-
mentation facility. Other simulation packages offer similar
capabilities, but Witness was readily available and also
familiar to the author.
In order to illustrate the approach of the study, a
computer simulation of an offshore EER event has been
constructed of a simpli®ed ®ctitious incident occurring
100 miles to the north east of Aberdeen. The model has
been interfaced with a ®le describing the weather and sea
state of real weather data in this sea area for a 212 year
period. Since the main concern of the analysis is the
behaviour of the EER system in adverse weather, only
the data describing the poorer weather and sea states were
employed. Storms were identi®ed and the data describing
the period from the development of the storm through to its
end were employed. This represented approximately 30%
of the original data set. Using the simulation, 1000 runs
were performed. Each run of the simulation used a different
randomly selected period of weather data. This extensive
replication ensures that a distribution of results could be
compiled to be representative of the variability in the
weather data. The effectiveness of the speci®ed EER
GI MouldÐAssessing systems for offshore emergency evacuation 403
system was recorded in terms of the time to complete the
rescue, and hence distributions of completed rescue times
were compiled.
The model
The structure of the model is shown in Figure 1. The main
part of the ®gure, the EER model, shows the sequence of
the major events in an emergency situation where evacua-
tion is by helicopter; these are denoted in capitals with a
suitable icon attached. The diagram in the bottom left-hand
corner depicts the weather model. This illustrative incident
model involves 30 men working on the offshore structure.
The EER model shows the paths of the two main elements
in the rescue, the workforce and helicopters. The ®rst
activity is the emergency event itself, the alarm is then
sounded and the work force evacuate the structure and
make their way to the safe haven. At the same time a call is
made for help to the rescue services. The evacuation takes
differing times according to the original location of the
workers and the route taken to the safe haven. Here they
wait until the situation deteriorates and they must escape to
the sea.
When the call is received by the rescue services; there
will be a short delay before a response is mounted when
helicopters take off to ¯y to the scene of the emergency.
The helicopters travel at speeds between 100 and 120 knots
depending on the weight of the craft. In strong headwinds
there will be a signi®cant reduction in speed. An alternative
EER system is also assessed in which FRCs are also
launched from nearby standby vessels. The FRCs make
their way to the scene; typically these will be travelling
relatively short distances since standby vessels are usually
located within a 5 mile radius of an offshore installation.
In the illustrative incident, the situation develops quickly
and the order is given for the crew to abandon the safe
haven and to escape directly into the sea (no lifeboats are
used in this example). When the boats and helicopters
arrive the men are then rescued from the sea, either by
winch to a helicopter or they are pulled from the sea by the
crew of a FRC. One of the limiting factors of rescue by
FRC is the fatigue of the crew who have to haul the
personnel into the boat from the sea. The duration of
these activities is heavily dependent on the prevailing sea
state as detailed in Table 1. The time elapsed from the start
of the emergency until the time of the rescue of the last man
is recorded in an Excel ®le for later analysis. The model is
then re-set to its initial state and re-run under different
weather conditions. It is not possible to validate a model
such as this in extreme conditions as there is no real data
available. Should data become available then a validation
exercise could be undertaken. Data from the Piper Alpha
incident would be of little value as this accident occurred in
almost perfect weather conditions. However, data is avail-
able from rescue exercise, the main assumptions of the
404 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 52, No. 4

Figure 1 Screen shot of the EER simulation model.

model are based on this data and the model can replicate
the outcomes of these exercises. In extreme conditions the
operation of helicopters and FRC is governed by their
operational guidelines. It is likely that there may be
instances where these craft operate without the guidelines
and this possibility has been included in some of the
sensitivity analyses undertaken with the model.
Modelling the weather
The weather data used with the model were obtained from
the North Cormorant ®eld in the northern North Sea.
The data were recorded at one hourly intervals over a
2 12 year period. The weather parameters used in this analysis
were wind speed and signi®cant wave height. At the start of
each run of the model the ®le of weather data is randomly
sampled for a starting point, data is then read into the model
at hourly intervals (model time) for the duration of the run.
This process is continued until the last member of the crew is
rescued or 24 h after the start of the emergency. The cut-off
point for this particular set of circumstances was set as 24 h
after the initial emergency, as it would be very unlikely for
anyone to be able to survive for longer than this in the North
Sea equipped with only a survival suit.

Table 1 Limiting conditions for weather-sensitive activities

Limiting conditions

Weather-sensitive activities Optimistic Expected Pessimistic

FRC launch and recovery Hs < 7 m Hs < 6.25 m Hs < 5.5 m
FRC speed reduced Hs > 5.5 m Hs > 5 m Hs > 4.5 m
FRC personnel location and rescue Hs < 7 m Hs < 6.25 m Hs < 5.5 m
affected
Helicopter speed reduced Wind speed > 18 m=s Wind speed > 15 m=s Wind speed > 15 m=s
Helicopter winch activities stopped Wind speed > 35 m=s or Wind speed > 35 m=s or Wind speed > 30 m=s or
Hs > 11 m Hs > 10 m Hs > 8 m

Hs: signi®cant wave height

 GI MouldÐAssessing systems for offshore emergency evacuation 405

The weather affects a number of the activities in the

model. Some of these, for example ¯ying or sailing, are
slowed down in adverse weather conditions (details of the
precise effects are given in Table 1). Other activities, for
example the launch of FRCs, helicopter hover and rescue,
have to be completely halted in certain conditions. In order
to model this effect weather resources are speci®ed in the
simulation, for example: `calm sea' and `no wind'. The
weather-sensitive activities require the appropriate resource
in order to proceed. In adverse conditions these resources
are withheld, thus prohibiting weather-sensitive activities
from being undertaken.
The weather modelling structure is shown in the bottom
left corner of Figure 1. Weather data is read from the ®le Figure 2 Comparison of the percentage of rescues completed
and is checked against the limiting conditions (speci®ed in over time.
Table 1) by the activity WCHECK. The weather is passed
to gale, rough, rufwind activities or, if calm conditions
prevail, it is passed out of the system (denoted by SHIP in
Figure 1). For example, if high seas are prevalent the
weather entity is passed to the activity rough. This activity
commands the resource `calm sea', thus halting any activ-
ities in the EER model which require `calm sea'. An
example of this is the rescue activity. Similarly the gale
activity commands the resource `no wind' and rufwind
commands both `calm sea' and `no wind', hence halting all
weather-sensitive activities in the EER model. At the end of
the hour period the weather entity is passed out of the
model, the subsequent record in the weather data ®le is read
and the process is repeated.
The model also has facilities for re¯ecting the effects of Figure 3 Sensitivity of response time for helicopter rescue.
the directionality of the environment, where such data are
available. This factor is particularly important in planning
rescues, in which the helicopters approach from north-
easterly direction into the prevailing south-westerly
winds. This is the case for some of the newer oil ®elds to
the west of the Shetlands and the effectiveness of the land
based rescue services may be reduced in such locations.

Use of the model

The structure of the simulation model is apparent from the
main simulation screen (Figure 1). This allows the logic of
the situation to be shown explicitly to the client. Running
the model does not require client interaction. This is
performed in batch mode as 1000 runs of the model are
Figure 4 Rescue time vs signi®cant wave height.
required to capture the variability of the weather. A typical
batch run of the model takes around 30 min on a standard
PC. The results are captured in an Excel ®le and undergo
further processing before being presented to the client in (A) helicopters alone were used;
the format of Figures 2 ± 5. (B) helicopters and up to three FRCs from standby vessels
were employed.
Comparing emergency evacuation and rescue systems
Such a comparison is useful in helping to determine the
The methodology for assessing the effectiveness of differ- importance of the availability of FRCs. The two scenarios
ent EER systems is demonstrated with a comparison of two were simulated assuming `expected' estimates of the
possible scenarios: environmental constraints for the various operations, as
406 Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 52, No. 4
Figure 5 (a) Cumulative frequency of rescue time for different
initial signi®cant wave height. (b) Cumulative frequency of rescue
time for different initial wind speed.
recorded in Table 1. 1000 iterations were undertaken in
each simulation, sampling from the ®le of weather data, in
order to establish the distribution of the rescue time result-
ing from the uncertainties in the weather and sea state. The
output from the batch run of the simulation was captured in
an Excel ®le enabling simple analysis to be performed
within the spreadsheet and a range of graphs were
produced. Figure 2 provides a comparison of the rescue
times for the two scenarios. There is an advantage in having
FRCs available for around 97% of rescues. Its use can
reduce rescue times by just under one hour in good
conditions and by up to two hours as conditions worsen.
Only in the worst conditions will there be no bene®t from
the use of FRCs.
Sensitivity analyses
It is dif®cult for anyone to be precise about the conditions
under which offshore operations can take place safely.
Judgements were obtained from various sources: the
experience of helicopter pilots, standby ship operators
and publications from the Health and Safety Executive.8
This resulted in a range of constraints for each operation,
summarised as three sets of conditions, representing opti-
mistic, expected and pessimistic, as noted in Table 1. The
analyses of the scenarios (A) and (B) were repeated using
the optimistic set and pessimistic set of estimates.
The results of these additional simulations are incorporated
in Figure 3. This illustrates the cumulative distribution of
the rescue times for scenario (A) under the three sets of
assumptions. It can be seen that, for 90% of rescues, the
difference in the total rescue time between those under-
taken with optimistic and pessimistic response expectations
is less than two hours. It is only for the 2% of rescues
taking the longest times that the difference in expectations
can lead to variances of ®ve or more hours in the total
rescue time.
Performance in adverse weather
Figure 4 illustrates the relationship between the rescue time
and the prevailing environmental conditions at the start of
the rescue, as measured by signi®cant wave height.
Although there is a correlation (r ˆ 0.64), it is far from
perfect. A similar relationship (r ˆ 0.60) between rescue
time and wind speed was observed. The number of outliers
may be partially explained by the fact that conditions may
improve or deteriorate during the course of the rescue. The
slightly higher correlation of rescue times with wave height
may re¯ect the greater sensitivity of this factor for response
times. The wind and wave data is itself correlated, though
again imperfectly. Further study of these two parameters
indicates that there is a time lag between the parameters,
with peak wave heights being recorded approximately 6 h
after the peak wind.13 Figures 5(a) and (b) show the effects
on rescue times of initial signi®cant wave height and wind
speed, respectively. These indicate that the rescue times
increase signi®cantly for initial signi®cant wave height
greater than 6 m and for initial wind speeds of more than
24 m=s; these results again re¯ect the greater sensitivity of
rescue operations to signi®cant wave height than to wind
speed. Figure 6(a) compares the two rescue scenarios in
conditions of extreme wave height (> 8 m). It can be seen
that in these circumstances the use of FRCs may decrease
rescue times by an average of 1.5 h in up to 40% of cases.
However, with the remaining cases conditions are in excess
of the operational limits of FRCs. Figure 6(b) compares
rescue scenarios in conditions of extreme wind (> 24 m=s);
in such high winds the FRCs can still operate usefully and
make a valuable contribution to reducing the rescue times.
Applications of the model
One of the main recommendations from Lord Cullen's
inquiry into the Piper Alpha Disaster2 was that operators
should assemble a full safety case identifying potential
accidental emergency scenarios. Subsequent legislation
has required operators to prepare response plans to the

Figure 6 (a) Rescue times under conditions of extreme initial
signi®cant wave height. (b) Rescue times under conditions of
extreme initial wind speed.
contingencies identi®ed in the safety case.14,15 This simula-
tion model provides a means of assessing such plans and
demonstrating the effectiveness of any proposed EER
facilities as a response to an offshore emergency. The
model highlights the lack of data available for planning
the response to such emergencies, since much evidence is
only available `off-the-record' anecdotal experience from
helicopter pilots and FRC operators. The work has high-
lighted the need to extend trials to more extreme condi-
tions. The model has been used as the basis for discussion
of further work with the Health and Safety Executive.
Future work
A likely future development to the model is the incorpora-
tion of directional wind data. This is of particular value
when evaluating EER facilities for the new oil ®elds being
developed west of Shetland. Here the rescue services must
approach the area from a south-westerly direction thus
¯ying into the prevailing wind. Strong winds will signif-
icantly increase the ¯ying time to the incident. In such
harsh environments the typical EER provision may not be
suf®cient. In these circumstances it is particularly impor-
tant to take full account of the effects of weather when
planning rescue capabilities.
GI MouldÐAssessing systems for offshore emergency evacuation 407
Conclusions
In assessing any emergency operation there is a problem
with a lack of data: there are few incidents and the
experience cannot be immediately generalised. However,
by collecting data from various sources it was possible to
construct a simulation model of an offshore emergency,
evacuation and rescue. The simulation based methodology
enables the assessment of alternative EER systems, re¯ect-
ing their merits in the variety of environmental conditions
that are found offshore. The approach was demonstrated in
a comparison of two rescue scenarios for a particular
location, which revealed that the use of fast rescue craft,
in addition to the helicopter, has bene®ts in all except the
harshest weather conditions. Further examination of
the simulation results revealed that this was largely due
to the ability of FRCs to operate in high winds. The
simulations provided an objective basis for assessing this
bene®t in terms of the percentile rescue duration. Such a
method of assessment has a signi®cant potential in contri-
buting to the implementation of the recommendations from
the Cullen inquiry to ensure that an appropriate response
plan is devised for the emergencies which might be
experienced offshore.
AcknowledgementsÐThe author would like to thank Shell UK Exploration
and Production for the data from the North Cormorant Platform.
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Received February 1999;
accepted October 2000 after two revisions