Enhancing the Evacuation Resilience of Ro-Ro Passenger Ships: A Psycho-Behavioral Coupled Simulation Focusing on Density Sensitivity Under Stress

To evaluate the psycho-behavioral interaction during Ro-Ro ship evacuations, this paper proposes a coupled simulation model integrating psychological stress with behavior. The model quantifies stress through a function of local density, dwelling time, exit distance, and lifejacket retrieval waiting time, specifically accounting for the bottleneck effects during the donning phase. Using a psychological stress factor to dynamically adjust weight coefficients in the exit choice cost function, the study utilizes the AnyLogic platform to compare five scenes: shortest distance (S1), stress-induced acceleration (S2), perceptual-decay herding (S3), dynamic congestion avoidance (S4), and without retrieving lifejackets (S5). Results indicate: (1) S4 improves evacuation efficiency by 7.58% over S3 by maintaining perceptual intensity, while stress-driven acceleration (S2) shows limited effectiveness. (2) Early preparation exerts critical feedback; S4 enhances lifejacket retrieval efficiency by 14.31% over S3, alleviating initial stress and its cross-stage negative impacts. (3) Dynamic avoidance improves system resilience, keeping stressed passengers within 8.5% and breaking the “congestion-stress” vicious cycle. This study demonstrates that moderate stress must be coupled with rational exit choices. S4 effectively intervenes in stress accumulation, and S5 verified the necessity of the simulation process for retrieving lifejackets, providing a quantitative basis for resilient and robust Ro-Ro ship emergency planning and crew guidance.