An Evaluation of the Effects of Human Factors on Pilotage Operations Safety

Abstract

In recent years, marine pilotage accidents occurring on a worldwide basis as a result of human error have not been ceased to transpire, despite advances in technology and a significant set of international conventions, regulations, and recommendations to reduce them. This paper aims to investigate the effect of human factors on the safety of maritime pilotage operations. The human factors that affect the operators who are performing ships’ berthing operations have also been examined in detail. In this study, in order to determine the causes of human-related errors occurred in maritime pilotage accidents, a comprehensive literature review is carried out, and a considerable number of real past case examples and an analysis of the maritime accident investigation reports regarding pilotage operations events that occurred between 1995 and 2015 have been reviewed. To validate the identified human-related risk factors (HCFs) and explore other contributory factors, survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with domain experts have been conducted. A structural hierarchy diagram for the identified risk factors (HCFs) has been developed and validated through experienced experts belonging to the maritime sector. A questionnaire for pair-wise comparison is carried out and analysed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach to evaluate the weight and rank the importance of the identified human causal factors. The findings of this study will benefit the maritime industry, by identifying a new database on causal factors that are contributing to the occurrence of maritime pilotage disasters. The database can be used as a stand-alone reference or help implement effective risk reduction strategies to reduce the human error, that might occur during pilotage operations.

Keywords

Pilotage accidents / Human factor / Pilotage operations / Maritime safety / Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)