Crew Size and Maritime Safety (1990) / Chapter Skim
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2. Safety Experience with Smaller Crews
2. Safety Experience with Smaller Crews
Pages 15-36
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From page 15... ...
However, the United States has not seen a comparable effort by government, industry, and labor to address this concern through comprehensive analysis and experimentation. Safety concerns expressed over crew reductions relate primarily to three operational considerations.
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From page 16... ...
Manning practices that are acceptable aboard a wellmanaged, well-maintained ship with a well-trained crew and appropriate automation and safety equipment may be unacceptable aboard a vessel without these advantages. These regulatory judgments are especially challenging where the Coast Guard must carry out its responsibility to prevent unsafe practices by foreign-hag vessels in U.S.
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From page 17... ...
For example, data on the numbers of casualties, personnel injuries, and oil spills per year are easily obtained. However, this information by itself is inadequate for meaningful statistical estimates of the contributions of vessel manning to the safety record.
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From page 18... ...
Accurate maritime safety assessments require precise, reliable, and highly detailed data on vessels, casualties, accidents, and pollution incidents. In addition, identifying trends requires intimate knowledge of the validity and variability of data from different sources and complex multivariate analysis.
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From page 19... ...
The FIRS file data on ITBs, for example, included inconsistent vessel identification numbers, making it difficult to determine whether the vessel name search was yielding all data for each vessel. In a second trial, the committee attempted to derive a broader sample by searching the data bases by company name, using companies known to operate with small crews.
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From page 20... ...
Comparison and analysis of the safety indices used by different companies could then be undertaken, which would provide meaningful insights into current safety trends and additional factors that should be monitored. Out of such a review should come recommendations as to how present Coast Guard reporting requirements should be modified to include factors that help identify meaningful relationships between casualties and injuries, on the one hand, and possible causal factors (e.g., vessel age, vessel size, crew size, crew overtime, crew continuity, and vessel equipment)
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From page 21... ...
These trends are consistent whether one considers statistics published by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the United Nations, by Lloyd's Casualty Reports, by the Marine Index Bureau, or by the U.S.
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From page 22... ...
Tanker Casualty Data A subset of total vessel data is tanker data developed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO)
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From page 23... ...
Souree: Data from Lloyd's Casualty Reports. FIGURE 2-2 Worldwide vessel loss rates (percentage of gross tonnage)
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From page 24... ...
Source: Data from U.S. Coast Guard, Annual Statistical Summary.
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From page 25... ...
U.S. Coast Guard Annual Casualty Reports Information has also been developed from the Coast Guard's Annual Statistical Summary of casualties and personnel injuries on inspected U.S.flag commercial vessels.
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From page 26... ...
Coast Guard. FIGURE 2-12 Percentages of total reported oil spills from tankers and oil barges, 19751989.
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From page 27... ...
Coast Guard.
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From page 28... ...
Data provided by Company B show marked declines in oil spills per vessel and personnel injuries per million man-hours worked (Figures 2-15 and 2-16~. Oil spills per vessel have declined 45 percent in the last 15 years, and injuries per million man-hours worked have declined 50 percent.
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From page 29... ...
20 <,' 1 8 o 1 6 cr: 1 4 o J a; U] CO LL Z 2 Lin Reg InJunes ~~~ Manning Per Vessel o 35 An_ __ 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 30 Act In In 111 25 ~ a: UJ 20 c, z 15 <: 111 10 (9 LIJ 5 O FIGURE 2-16 Manning levels and annual rates of personnel injuries per million workhoum, Company B
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From page 30... ...
Some express a lack of confidence in the Coast Guard's even-handedness in addressing labor-management issues (Alliance of Independent Maritime Organizations, 1989; Hillman, 1989; International Transport Workers Federation, 1990~. Vessel Operators The committee members and staff visited the offices of nine U.S.-owned vessel operators to conduct interviews (see Appendix D for questionnaire)
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From page 31... ...
Coast Guard casualty reports rarely note fatigue as a contributing factor; however, there is reason to believe that its contribution is underreported, owing to reporting procedures (Pettin, 1987~. Complicating analysis of the problem is the difficulty of measuring fatigue.
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From page 32... ...
Nonetheless, ship safety will be impaired if reduced manning causes deferral of needed maintenance on safety-related equipment. Union representatives have filed grievances alleging that crew reductions have resulted in essential safety equipment being allowed to remain in disrepair in violation of Coast Guard regulations and collective bargaining agreements (Hillman, 1989~.
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From page 33... ...
Whatever the approach, it is essential that Coast Guard certifications be based on demonstrated proficiency and that management exercise diligence to promote or hire only qualified people.
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From page 34... ...
As noted earlier, the Coast Guard data bases are presently inadequate to support even retrospective conclusions about the
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From page 35... ...
In addition to the broad safety statistics, more detailed safety studies of the following factors are needed to support the manning innovations now being undertaken or contemplated by U.S.-flag fleets. Such studies should consider the following: the prevalence and severity of fatigue aboard merchant ships, with attention to the role of fatigue in navigation errors and personnel accidents; · the human factors issues presented by the one-person bridge, including the operators' responses to fatigue and the ergonomic design of control and monitoring systems; · changes in maintenance practices owing to reductions in engineering complements; · the maintenance effectiveness of riding crews and shore-based maintenance; · the effects of traditional watch schedules on crew members' circadian rhythms, and the consequent impacts on effectiveness and safety; and · the data collection requirements for adequate assessments of the safety effects of smaller crews.
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From page 36... ...
Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation examination of Capt. Iakovas Georgoudis in the matter of the M/T World Prodigy grounding in Rhode Island Sound on June 23, 1989.
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