Maritime Safety and Operations

A special issue of Safety (ISSN 2313-576X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (3 July 2020) | Viewed by 46432

Special Issue Editor

Maritime Safety Research Centre, Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0LZ, UK
Interests: naval architecture; ocean and marine engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Research in Maritime Safety and Operations over the last few decades has been intensive and resulted in significant improvements to the previously poor safety record of the industry. However, there are still significant gaps, as a number of recent accidents depict. On the other hand, new designs and larger vessels, the introduction of novel technologies such as autonomous and unmanned systems, and artificial intelligence for smart shipping and alternative fuels for compliance with IMO’s 2050 GHG emission targets create new safety challenges that the industry needs to face sooner rather than later. New methodologies are currently being developed in a number of universities, and specialised research institutes for modelling risk and novel tools have been developed to allow all stakeholders to improve safety. This Special Issue focuses on a number of carefully selected contemporary issues on Maritime Safety and Operations. The objective is to disseminate rapidly the latest research and knowledge in this important area. The following areas are of particular interest:

  • Holistic ship design, and novel systems and equipment
  • Marine accident analysis and investigation
  • Rules, regulations, and standards
  • Risk modelling (hazard identification, risk estimation tools, FSAs)
  • Crashworthiness and structural reliability
  • Novel risk control options (passive, active, and operational) and smart safety systems and equipment
  • Human factors in maritime safety
  • Unmanned and autonomous systems applications in maritime safety including SAR
  • Advanced numerical simulation tools (including CFD) and practical applications
  • Alternative marine fuels and safety

Dr. Evangelos Boulougouris|
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Safety is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Design for safety
  • New generation of intact and damage stability standards and methods
  • Crashworthiness and extend of damage
  • Fire on Ropax car decks and on containerships
  • Risk models for flooding, fire, and evacuation
  • Crowd modelling and evacuation simulations and augmented reality
  • Intelligent navigation
  • Search and Rescue (SAR) using drones
  • Engine room fires
  • Risk assessment
  • Safety control systems
  • Safe return to port
  • Increasing survivability by active and operational measures
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications to maritime safety
  • Deep learning algorithms for the analysis of maritime accidents
  • Human Reliability Analysis with an emphasis on maritime safety
  • Safety considerations of Alternative Marine Fuels (LNG, LPG, methanol, and hydrogen)
  • Battery-powered ships

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

38 pages, 7570 KiB  
Article
Risk Assessment of a Battery-Powered High-Speed Ferry Using Formal Safety Assessment
by Haibin Wang, Evangelos Boulougouris, Gerasimos Theotokatos, Alexandros Priftis, Guangyu Shi, Mikal Dahle and Edmund Tolo
Safety 2020, 6(3), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety6030039 - 26 Aug 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 11010
Abstract
Fully electric ships have been widely developed, investigated and evaluated by the maritime industry as a potential solution to respond to the emissions control required according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This study aims at presenting a novel approach to evaluate the [...] Read more.
Fully electric ships have been widely developed, investigated and evaluated by the maritime industry as a potential solution to respond to the emissions control required according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This study aims at presenting a novel approach to evaluate the safety level of a battery-powered high speed catamaran. Following the Formal Safety Assessment procedure, the risk assessment of the considered ship was conducted leading to the identification of the involved hazards along with the estimation of their frequency and consequences thus allowing for the identification of the most severe hazards. Fault tree analysis is carried out for and the identified top events followed by an event tree analysis to estimate the risk and safety level of the vessel. Furthermore, a cost-benefit assessment is conducted to evaluate the financial impact of selected risk control options. The derived results indicate that the application of battery power systems for high speed ferries exhibits low and acceptable accident frequencies. It is also supported the current regulation to carry out mandatory risk assessment for battery-powered ships. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maritime Safety and Operations)
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31 pages, 4554 KiB  
Article
A Novel Method for Safety Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems—Application to a Ship Exhaust Gas Scrubber System
by Victor Bolbot, Gerasimos Theotokatos, Evangelos Boulougouris, George Psarros and Rainer Hamann
Safety 2020, 6(2), 26; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety6020026 - 19 May 2020
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 8427
Abstract
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) represent a systems category developed and promoted in the maritime industry to automate functions and system operations. In this study, a novel Combinatorial Approach for Safety Analysis is presented, which addresses the traditional safety methods’ limitations by integrating System Theoretic [...] Read more.
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) represent a systems category developed and promoted in the maritime industry to automate functions and system operations. In this study, a novel Combinatorial Approach for Safety Analysis is presented, which addresses the traditional safety methods’ limitations by integrating System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), Events Sequence Identification (ETI) and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). The developed method results in the development of a detailed Fault Tree that captures the effects of both the physical components/subsystems and the software functions’ failures. The quantitative step of the method employs the components’ failure rates to calculate the top event failure rate along with importance metrics for identifying the most critical components/functions. This method is implemented for an exhaust gas open loop scrubber system safety analysis to estimate its failure rate and identify critical failures considering the baseline system configuration as well as various alternatives with advanced functions for monitoring and diagnostics. The results demonstrate that configurations with SOx sensor continuous monitoring or scrubber unit failure diagnosis/prognosis lead to significantly lower failure rate. Based on the analysis results, the advantages/disadvantages of the novel method are also discussed. This study also provides insights for better safety analysis of the CPSs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maritime Safety and Operations)
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21 pages, 4675 KiB  
Article
Improved Strategies for the Maritime Industry to Target Vessels for Inspection and to Select Inspection Priority Areas
by Sabine Knapp and Christiaan Heij
Safety 2020, 6(2), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety6020018 - 31 Mar 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 6933
Abstract
Inspection authorities such as the Port State Control Memoranda of Understanding use different policies and targeting methods to select vessels for inspections and rely primarily on past inspection outcomes. One of the main goals of inspections is to improve the safety quality of [...] Read more.
Inspection authorities such as the Port State Control Memoranda of Understanding use different policies and targeting methods to select vessels for inspections and rely primarily on past inspection outcomes. One of the main goals of inspections is to improve the safety quality of vessels and to reduce the probability of future incidents. This study shows there is room for improvement in targeting vessels for inspections and in determining vessel-specific inspection priority areas (e.g., bridge management versus machinery related items). For the year 2018, sixty percent of vessels that experienced very serious or serious (VSS) incidents were not selected for inspection up to three months prior to the incident and forty percent of the vessels that were inspected still had incidents of which only four percent were detained. Furthermore, one can observe a very low correlation (−0.04) between the probabilities of detention and incidents (VSS) for the year 2018. The proposed approach treats detention and incident types as separate risk dimensions and evaluates seven targeting methods against random selection of vessels using empirical data for 2018. The analysis is based on three comprehensive data sets that cover the world fleet and shows potential gains (reduction of false negative events) of 14–27 percent compared to random selection. This can be further improved by adding eight inspection priority risk areas that help inspectors to focus inspections by providing insight in the individual risk profile of vessels. Policy makers can further customize the approach by classifying the risk of vessels into categories and by selecting inspection targets and benchmark samples. A small application example is provided to demonstrate feasibility of the proposed approach for policy makers and inspection authorities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maritime Safety and Operations)
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15 pages, 1142 KiB  
Article
Leaders’ Influence Tactics for Safety: An Exploratory Study in the Maritime Context
by Tae-eun Kim and Anne Haugen Gausdal
Safety 2020, 6(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety6010008 - 05 Feb 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 11048
Abstract
A growing body of research has pointed out effective leadership as an important influencing factor for safety performance in various high-risk industrial contexts. However, limited systematic knowledge is available about how leaders can effectively persuade rule compliance, and stimulate actions and participation. Recognizing [...] Read more.
A growing body of research has pointed out effective leadership as an important influencing factor for safety performance in various high-risk industrial contexts. However, limited systematic knowledge is available about how leaders can effectively persuade rule compliance, and stimulate actions and participation. Recognizing effective means of influence is of value for safety leadership development and evaluation. This study seeks to empirically investigate leaders’ influence tactics for safety in a maritime context. Qualitative exploration is performed with data being collected through focus group discussions and individual interviews with 41 experienced shipboard leaders from various shipping sectors. Five core influence tactics—coaching, role modeling, pressure, consultation and exchange tactics—appeared to be the shipboard leaders’ effective tactics to influence subordinates’ safety compliance and participation behaviors in ship operations. Safety leadership influences flow from exemplification, expert and personal sources of power, and being pursued through soft and rational influence tactics rather than coercion or constructive inducements. The results indicate that the more relationship-oriented the leaders are, the more effective their safety leadership would be in influencing safety behaviors. The implication of the results for maritime safety leadership research, maritime education and training are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maritime Safety and Operations)
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17 pages, 2036 KiB  
Article
Predicting Traffic and Risk Exposure in the Maritime Industry
by Stephen Vander Hoorn and Sabine Knapp
Safety 2019, 5(3), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety5030042 - 01 Jul 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6855
Abstract
Maritime regulators, port authorities, and industry require the ability to predict risk exposure of shipping activities at a micro and macro level to optimize asset allocation and to mitigate and prevent incidents. This article introduces the concept of a strategic planning tool by [...] Read more.
Maritime regulators, port authorities, and industry require the ability to predict risk exposure of shipping activities at a micro and macro level to optimize asset allocation and to mitigate and prevent incidents. This article introduces the concept of a strategic planning tool by making use of the multi-layered risk estimation framework (MLREF), which accounts for ship specific risk, vessel traffic densities, and meets ocean conditions at the macro level. This article’s main contribution is to provide a traffic and risk exposure prediction routine that allows the traffic forecast to be distributed across the shipping route network to allow for predicting scenarios at the macro level (e.g., covering larger geographic areas) and micro level (e.g., passage way, particular route of interest). In addition, the micro level is introduced by providing a theoretical idea to integrate location specific spatial rate ratios along with the effect of the risk control option to perform sensitivity analysis of risk exposure prediction scenarios. Aspects of the risk exposure estimation routine were tested via a pilot study for the Australian region using a comprehensive and unique combination of datasets. Sources of uncertainties for risk assessments are described in general and discussed along with the potential for future developments and improvements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maritime Safety and Operations)
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