Shipping stands on the precipice of great digital and green transformation, but rapid changes ahead pose safety and operational challenges, reports Riviera.
New challenges
An inadequate top-down safety culture, which minimizes the focus on safety and encourages poor reporting systems, is one of the major hurdles standing between the maritime industry and a safer future.
All too often, safety is viewed as a tick-box exercise, with insufficient attention paid to proactively addressing known risks.
There is also a tendency in shipping to place too much focus on human error. While individual mistakes remain a leading cause of safety incidents, over-emphasis on this can obscure organizational safety-culture failings.
Besides, poor living and working conditions, separation from families, and unfair employment practices continue to hurt seafarer well-being. All of these factors are likely contributing to the elevated risk of safety incidents attributable to human error.
At the same time, an endemic fear of losing competitive advantage has translated into a widespread reluctance among shipping companies to share information that could help the industry learn from recurring incidents and drive the safety agenda forward. Instead, data is collected in silos, and trends and practices remain opaque.
Righting the ship
Tackling maritime safety deficiencies will rely on collaboration between governments, regulatory bodies, industry stakeholders, and seafarer organizations.
With the international agreement to set ambitious emissions-reduction targets proving pivotal in shipping’s transition towards greener operations, similar targets could be established to accelerate cultural change in maritime safety.
An industry-wide safety culture centred on data collection and analysis would help in identifying trends and continuously improving safety measures, with safety data and reports used to proactively tackle the root causes of repeated and well-known safety issues to reduce incidence rates.
Data and technology – such as virtual and augmented reality – could be used to enhance seafarer development by providing achievable, targeted, and immersive training for crew in safe and controlled environments.
Given the risks associated with alternative fuels and the scale of retraining required to handle them safely, such an approach could help to maximize safety standards as shipping’s green transition advances.
In addition, technology-based training could be scheduled for minimal interference with seafarer rest periods.
How data is collected, collated, and presented also requires attention. Consensus on a list of standard data points that the industry wishes to monitor – including maritime casualties and incidents, injuries, and deaths at sea, and near misses – is a necessary first step.
Equally important are the formalization of data-collection processes and the anonymization of incident and casualty data to facilitate data sharing and help to overcome prevailing unease towards the practice due to commercial sensitivities.
This would lead to more accurate trend analysis and the development of proactive interventions such as targeted policies and guidelines.
Ultimately, shipping has to change the narrative from a culture of commercial and personal secrecy, out of fear of competition and punitive measures, to one of transparency, collaboration, and the acceptance of safety-related change.
In this way, it can better protect seafarers, vessels, and the environment, and ensure that safety keeps pace with the other aspects of a sustainable transition that are steering the industry towards a new dawn.
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Source: Riviera
