A Critical Assessment of Human Element Regarding Maritime Safety

The paper presents the findings, derived from a structured questionnaire, that cover various aspects of the relation between human factor and maritime safety. In general, human element holds a very important share compared to the ensemble of marine-accident causes

The development and demonstration of an enhanced risk model for the evacuation process of large passenger vessels

Evacuating a large and complex environment, such as a large passenger vessel, either cruise or RoPax, is a safety-critical task that involves thousands of people in motion and a complex decision-making process. Despite the significant enhancement of maritime safety over the years, various hazards still pose threats to passengers and crew. To deal with this reality, the SafePASS project radically redefines the evacuation process by introducing novel technological solutions. In this context, this paper presents, in detail, an enhanced risk model for the ship evacuation process in order to facilitate the understanding of the actual risks of the process in fire and flooding accidents, and to assess various risk control measures and options toward risk mitigation. The risk model covers the entire event sequence in emergency cases on board, until the survival at sea phase, and it is constructed in two levels, following a combination of event tree analysis and Bayesian networks. Results show the risk corresponds to baseline scenarios for each accident case, which are also verified by relevant IMO and EMSA studies, and an example case of risk control option (RCO) is introduced to the model to demonstrate its ability to assess RCO’s efficiency in terms of risk reduction

The development and demonstration of an enhanced risk model for the evacuation process of large passenger vessels

Evacuating a large and complex environment, such as a large passenger vessel, either cruise or RoPax, is a safety-critical task that involves thousands of people in motion and a complex decision-making process. Despite the significant enhancement of maritime safety over the years, various hazards still pose threats to passengers and crew. To deal with this reality, the SafePASS project radically redefines the evacuation process by introducing novel technological solutions. In this context, this paper presents, in detail, an enhanced risk model for the ship evacuation process in order to facilitate the understanding of the actual risks of the process in fire and flooding accidents, and to assess various risk control measures and options toward risk mitigation. The risk model covers the entire event sequence in emergency cases on board, until the survival at sea phase, and it is constructed in two levels, following a combination of event tree analysis and Bayesian networks. Results show the risk corresponds to baseline scenarios for each accident case, which are also verified by relevant IMO and EMSA studies, and an example case of risk control option (RCO) is introduced to the model to demonstrate its ability to assess RCO’s efficiency in terms of risk reduction

A Critical Assessment of Human Element Regarding Maritime Safety

The paper presents the findings, derived from a structured questionnaire, that cover various aspects of the relation between human factor and maritime safety. In general, human element holds a very important share compared to the ensemble of marine-accident causes

Developing a Framework for Health Risk Assessment, by Integrating Infection and Spreading Aspects into RBD

Communicable diseases pose a significant threat for passenger vessels, as norovirus, influenza, food, waterborne diseases, and lately COVID-19 have caused several public health events. To manage the risks deriving from communicable diseases, this work focuses on ship design by developing a framework for health risk assessment. This framework is based on the risk-based design, an emerging design process for which safety is considered as a design criterion, by also integrating infection and spreading aspects. The framework shall allow the assessment of various design solutions, as risk control options, aiming at minimizing the spread of diseases and, thus, its consequences

An exploration of the circumstances and changes in the shipbuilding industry in the last decades

The shipbuilding industry has experienced significant changes over the course of the last century. Traditional ship building nations such as the UK and USA, followed by a flourishing industry in Europe, were gradually replaced by China, Japan and South Korea by the end of the 20th century. The reasons for the pronounced shift to the Far East and Asia over the last decades have been several and diverse. Currently, about 85% of the shipbuilding industry is concentrated in the three nations mentioned previously and often the quality of new builds post the shift to the Far East and Asia has been questioned. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the circumstances and changes that have taken place in the ship building industry in the past decades and explore their impact, if any, on ship safety. This study presents the findings of one pilot data collection (questionnaire) study which involved a pool of experts (n=30) with shipbuilding and operational experience, both from ship-owners and classification societies. The questionnaire investigated four main topics: Quality of new buildings in China, Europe, Japan and South Korea, quality of ships in operation (e.g. main failure mechanisms, failure modes, etc.), counterfeit equipment and, last but not the least, general attitude towards EC Regulation 391/2009 on common rules and standards for ship inspections and survey organisations. The results of the study express that the shift towards Japan (80s), South Korea (90s) and China (2000s) is mainly due to different, and sometimes cheaper services and faster production of new builds. Moreover, due to the increased size of new ships, ship-owners have been seeking shipyards capable of accommodating large structures; shipyards that are mainly located in Asian countries. However, the general perceptions by operators and surveyors is that the quality of new constructions with respect to design, know-how, material, labour conditions, quality control and workforce specifications has not really deteriorated in the last decades. While the financial crisis seems not to have played a leading role in the manufacturing quality of the shipbuilding process, other factors which could have a negative influence on the safety of the vessel once in operation, were also investigated