Monitoring of indoor air quality at a large sailing cruise ship to assess ventilation performance and disease transmission risk

Large passenger ships are characterised as enclosed and crowded indoor spaces with frequent interactions between travellers, providing conditions that facilitate disease transmission. This study aims to provide an indoor ship CO₂ dataset for inferring thermal comfort, ventilation and infectious disease transmission risk evaluation. Indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring was conducted in nine environments (three cabins, buffet, gym, bar, restaurant, pub and theatre), on board a cruise ship voyaging across the UK and EU, with the study conducted in the framework of the EU HEALTHY SAILING project. CO₂ concentrations, temperature and relative humidity (RH) were simultaneously monitored to investigate thermal characteristics and effectiveness of ventilation performance. Results show a slightly higher RH of 68.2 ± 5.3 % aboard compared to ASHRAE and ISO recommended targets, with temperature recorded at 22.3 ± 1.4 °C. Generally, good IAQ (<1000 ppm) was measured with CO₂ mainly varying between 400 and 1200 ppm. The estimated air change rates (ACH) and ventilation rates (VR) implied sufficient ventilation was provided in most locations, and the theatre (VR: 86 L s⁻¹ person⁻¹) and cabins (VR: >20 L s⁻¹ person⁻¹) were highly over-ventilated. Dining areas including the pub and restaurant recorded high CO₂ concentrations (>2000 ppm) potentially due to higher footfall (0.6 person m⁻² and 0.4 person m⁻²) and limited ACH (2.3 h⁻¹ and 0.8 h⁻¹), indicating a potential risk of infection; these areas should be prioritised for improvement. The IAQ and probability of infection indicate there is an opportunity for energy saving by lowering hotel load for the theatre and cabins and achieving the minimum acceptable VR (10 L s⁻¹ person⁻¹) for occupants' comfort and disease control. Our study produced a first-time dataset from a sailing cruise ship's ventilated areas and provided evidence that can inform guidelines about the optimisation of ventilation operations in large passenger ships, contributing to respiratory health, infection control and energy efficiency aboard.