A hybrid approach to near-miss report investigation towards next-generation safety solutions on-board ships

The human element is a key aspect of safety at sea. It is highlighted as the most contributing factor to the various accidents, incidents, hazardous occurrences and near-miss events onboard ships. This paper proposed a hybrid approach to systematically identify the causations leading to the occurrence of near-miss events onboard ships. The methodology is based on Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) and Analytical Network Process (ANP). The HFACS investigates the potential causes under unsafe acts, pre-conditions for unsafe acts, unsafe supervision, and organizational influences. As dependencies among the selected causes are observed in the near-miss report prescreening, the ANP proved to be a suitable method for consistently clustering and prioritization. The hybrid approach is demonstrated with published 2828 near-miss reports of 25 different shipping companies in 3 years period. A novel contribution of this study is to strictly provide preventive action recommendations from safety engineering, information and communication technology perspectives. The val-idity of conventional and next-generation safety solutions is tested and benchmarked with the responses from ship management companies. Since the near-miss analysis is recently a focal requirement of maritime conven-tions and third-party inspection regimes, this study encourages marine technology providers to promote next -generation safety solutions on-board ships.

Automated summary

The human element is identified as the main cause of accidents at sea. This study proposes a hybrid approach to systematically identify the causes of near-miss events on ships. By combining Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) with Analytical Network Process (ANP), the study provides preventive action recommendations and promotes next-generation safety solutions for ship management companies.