The Severity of Shipboard Communication Failures in Maritime Emergencies:
A Risk Management Approach
Karahalios, Hristos. "The severity of shipboard communication failures in maritime emergencies: A risk management approach." International journal of disaster risk reduction 28 (2018): 1-9.
A B S T R A C T
Radio communications is a critical aspect of safe ship operations, especially in emergency conditions. For a ship, its radio communication efficiency is crucial for enforcing contingency plans in an emergency. Otherwise, rescue operations may be very challenging especially in oceans. Thus this study proposed a methodology identifying the probability of a ship in distress to have a failure to certain radio equipment. The methodology could be a valuable tool for coastal states to improve their contingency plans. The methodology involves common criteria in determining the risk factors of identifying a ship with radio communication failures. These factors are based on frequency analysis of 392 ships with radio equipment malfunctions with the means of Analysis Of Variances (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests. It was found that ships of certain characteristics, such as type and size, frequently have radio communication failures. On the contrary, the classification society and flag state of a ship were not deterministic factors. Furthermore, as essential parts of the research methodology, fuzzy sets and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) were used, to evaluate the severity of hazards to search and rescue operations, due to radio failures. Eventually, a case study was carried out, showing the potentials of the proposed methodology Keywords: Shipboard Communications, Risk Assessment, Search and Rescue
Keywords
Shipboard communications, Risk assessment, Search and rescue
1. INTRODUCTION
A maritime accident may cause harm to the ship, cargo carried, loss of crew life or damage to the marine environment [77,27,26,2]. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as a leading worldwide regulatory authority has developed regulations aiming risk reduction in ship operations. Risk reduction is defined as strategic and instrumental measures employed for anticipating future disaster risk, reducing existing exposure, hazard, or vulnerability, and improving resilience [25]. With respect to shipboard emergency planning, has issued two resolutions, where the emphasis is given to the effective ship-shore communications. The first one is the guideline for the Development of a Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP), published by the IMO under MEPC.54(32) 1992, as amended by MEPC.86(44) 2000 and MEPC 117(52) 2004 [39]. The SOPEP requirement focuses on the preparation of a shipboard plan, containing procedures for incidents, such as fire/explosion, collision, grounding, and excessive list that could lead to oil discharge at sea from the ship's bunkers or its cargo [45]. An essential part of this plan is that a ship should report an incident to the authorities timely and efficiently, in order to establish further ship-shore cooperation. The second resolution is A.852(20), adopted on 27 November 1997 and revised with MSC 91/22/Add.2, with the title; “Guidelines for a Structure of an Integrated System of Contingency Planning for Shipboard Emergencies”. In this resolution, in paragraph 3.2.5, it is written that a ship involved in an emergency, or in a marine pollution incident, must communicate with the appropriate ship interests coastal state, or the port contacts. Additionally, in paragraph 3.2.4.12, the guideline specifies the communication abilities of a plan in an emergency condition. The IMO resolutions are binding on the coastal states, which should be prepared to correspond when a ship requests assistance. A notable relevant legal obligation for each state is to provide Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) services, as agreed at an international level, within the international conventions
[37,36,85]. The main aim of SAR services is to assist people in distress or danger at sea. They also involve activities, such as assisting ships and vessels in difficult situations [15,9], accident prevention, search and rescue, medical consultations and patient transportation [57]. Some studies have focused on the complexity of the decision making, during SAR operations [75]. One area where improvements are considered necessary by SAR operators is the communication and information exchange with vessel's crew [57]. The utilization of radio shipboard communication at the beginning of the 20th century, as part of maritime rescue plans, was a significant contributing factor in reducing the losses of the lives of seafarers [31]. Furthermore, the radio communications improved the medical advice services for seafarers offer assistance by health professionals to seafarers, depending on the location of a ship and the availability of the coastal radio stations [29,40]. In an emergency, a ship should exercise contingency plans which require assistance from ashore where communications efficiency is a paramount issue. Due to the long distance of a ship from coast its radio communication equipment will be the most important tool in order to manage risk and eliminate disasters. To this aspect, the satellite era provided a safety net of many capabilities for ships, with respect to the positioning finding and the communications. The advent of the satellite-based improved ship-to-shore communications at a global level. The intervention of the IMO, offers some options for communication, regarding the safety information exchange, such as the GMDSS, the SafetyNet and the FleetNet systems [67]. As regards the GMDSS system, improved radio communication system, assisted the rescue services not only in the search, but also in the reduction of the number of serious casualties [50]. The SAR Convention was designed to provide a global system for responding to emergencies.
The GMDSS was established to provide SAR with the efficient communication support it needs.
A ship in distress should be able to contact by any available means, the nearby states, to enhance a rescue mission. However ineffective transmission of a distress signal or other safety information by a ship to a coastal station may be due to poor maintenance or operation of radio communication by seafarers. Therefore coastal states enhance regular safety inspections of ships at the ports or anchorages by government officials, such as the Port State Control (PSC) officers, aiming to identify any equipment malfunctions [49]. PSC inspections reveal several deficiencies, in terms of radio equipment maintenance and crew training standards [18,74,66]. According to Tang and Sampson [80] ship officers were found to have limitations in operation and
maintenance of radio equipment. A possible cause could be that many GMDSS manufacturers did not concentrate on the development of a sound ergonomic system [82]. Due to costs of PSC inspections, ships with certain characteristics, such as the type, the age, the flag state and the classification society are not regularly inspected [18,71,49,83]. In this respect, some private industrial authorities establish complimentary inspections, evaluate shipboard radio communications [50]. However, there is some uncertainty as several ships are not inspected frequently. The aim of this paper is to contribute, with respect to the identification of the ships which are more likely to have radio equipment failures by introducing a risk analysis model. The proposed model is based on frequency analysis and combined with the Fuzzy-AHP method. Within this framework, the proposed method is used to provide a ranking of decision alternatives and prioritisation weights of those factors. As a consequence, the paper consists of five main sections. The first section expresses the motivation behind the research. In the second section, the literature is extended, in order to identify failures and limitations of radio communication. The third section explains the proposed methodology, its technical background, and the related application in literature. The development of a monitoring tool, which will include the ship characteristics, is identified as a tool to minimise the risk exposure of a coastal state, due to an occurrence of an accident. The model demonstration is provided in section four. The final section concludes with a discussion and an original contribution to the research.
2. Review on radio communications effectiveness
2.1. Geographical coverage and limitations of GMDSS
The aim of GMDSS is that a ship can transmit its geographical position, by a radio or satellite telecommunication system, along with a Maritime Mobile Service Identifier (MMSI) Number to the international SAR operators in the event of an emergency [22]. The broadcast of MSI to ships, navigational warnings, weather forecast, storm warning and Search and Rescue (SAR) information, are useful in prevention of accidents [52]. The efficiency of the GMDSS system is to ensure that all radio equipment, include the Digital Selective Calling (DSC) function which is mandatory [58]. The DSC is designed to initiate the transmission of a distress call message to land stations via MF, HF, VHF and satellite medium communication and to carry the vessel's information, position and the type of distress [93]. GMDSS system has significant operating costs when compared to other initiations, such as SAR, VTS and pilotage [65,61,48]. Therefore the design of GMDSS is based on four separate geographical zones, as shown in Table 1. This worldwide communication plan aims to minimise impacts of hazards at sea, and includes ways to manage the associated risks which are basic elements of Disaster Risk Reduction as discussed by Forino, et al., [25]. The concept of GMDSS is that a ship is equipped with radio equipment sufficient for the geographical areas certified to trade. However, failure of some equipment will reduce the capability of a ship to communicate with SAR operators by using the most efficient way has not been examined in detail at previous research studies.
2.2. Radio equipment reliability
An early application of radio communication systems in GMDSS Area A1 was the use of Very High Frequency (VHF) radio, for short distances [35]. A main practical application of VHF is the collisionavoidance manoeuvring among ships transmission of messages by the coastal states [76]. Recent VHF application is the Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder transmits ships position, speed and course, among other static information (such as vessel's name, dimensions and voyage details) periodically to predefined VHF channels [17,21,38,73]. In GMDSS Area A2 the use of High Frequency (HF) radio waves for long-range voice and telex communications, are adopted. The GMDSS system also includes Narrow-band direct- printing telegraph equipment, for receiving meteorological or navigational information (NAVTEX) in Medium Frequency (MF) band [12,59]. However, radio wave technologies are subject to failures due to exposure if their antennas in the marine environment, ship motions, due to the fluctuation of the sea waves or ionospheric plasma parameters [14]. Despite the technological advance in antenna designs, the marine environment is affecting the angle between the transmit antenna and the receiving antenna [61,32,94]. One main limitation of VHF radio frequencies is that it has a range of less than 20 nautical miles [61]. For ships involved in ocean passages, GMDSS Area A3, the International Mobile Satellite Organisation (INMARSAT) provides Enhanced Group Calling and SafetyNet services, by broadcasting MSI, communications between ship-shore and ship-ship, which includes narrowband, broadband and distress services, in fixed geographical or pre-determined coastal areas [13,55]. INMARSAT is designed as a system of geostationary orbit satellites [8]. On the other hand, ships need to be equipped with a Mobile Earth Station, type-approved to benefit from the above services in GMDSS Area A3 [10,17]. However, due to the orbit of its satellites, there is no service above and below 75–80° North and South latitude respectively, including sensitive regions, such as the Arctic region [10]. As an alternative to satellite failures ships are equipped with Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) operating in 121.5 MHz and 406 MHz [8]. In case a ship is foundered, then EPIRB will transmit a signal of urgency to the coastal station through INMARSAT information and COSPAS SARSAT services in more than 200 countries and territories. EPIRBs were shown to work in practice, but their introduction has had limited influence on survival statistics [31]. Furthermore, it has been noted that in the case of a false EPIRB distress signal the SAR centre sends a rescue team to the location, which incurs substantial costs to coastal authorities [31,8].
6. Conclusion & discussion
The results of the case study showed that there is a relation between some certain characteristics of ships and radio communication failures. In terms of classification societies and flag, there was not any association found, as regards radio communication failures for ships detained. Regarding the ship size, the database revealed significance only for HF failures. With regards to the ship type, general cargo type ships were the majority of the ships detained for radio communication failures. This paper suggests that the priorities of a SAR centre showed that the longer distance a ship sails from a coastal state, the more remote the weighting of hazard, with respect to pollution and navigation threats, is. On the other hand, the safety of life and the protection of the marine environment are always ranked first and second, respectively, in all the geographical areas. The proposed methodology is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, producing a hybrid model. The application of fuzzy AHP with the assistance of experts, produced a decision-making methodology applicable to the coastalauthorities. SAR operators can use this methodology to increase their efficiency, by evaluating the ship, which is more likely to have a radio communication failure. It could also assist the ship operators and regulators to understand the compliance requirements with SOLAS. The examination of a case study with data from the IMO, showed that GMDSS operation was at fault for 98 cases and 77 MF/HF failures. It appears that there are risk issues due to undetected failures of a noninspected ship, operating in A3 GMDSS areas. Those ships, if found in an emergency situation, may have limitations in conducting SAR operators, causing therefore, undue delays in receiving assistance. The proposed tool was tested on ships detained by Paris MOU PSC authorities. This choice was made due to the availability of data. However, it is suggested that other MOU databases should be examined, so as for the results to be compared. Paris MOU is considered as a strict PSC regime, providing rigorous inspections. Thus, it may be considered that ship operators with substandard ships, may prefer to trade in other geographical areas. Such a preference could increase risk exposure to some states. Accordingly, it is expected that radio communication failures may be more frequent or more severe in other geographical regions.