Survivability of Ships at Sea: A Human Factors Perspective

Most fatal accidents at sea were caused by small incidents that escalated into uncontrolled severe events. This research is trying to develop a model to calculate the probability of fatal accidents, given a critical incident has already occurred. The focus of the study is on the human factors. Hardware reliability perspective is adopted. The vessel is considered as a system to be protected by several barriers. The crew are modelled as the active barriers and distinguished into different functions: to perceive, decide and act. Markov diagram is utilized to model different situations on the vessel. A mathematical model to calculate the probability of failure on emergency is formulated. A new parameter is defined showing the survivability of a vessel, given a critical incident took place.