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1 THEPROBLEM
Marine catastrophes happen all the time. EMSA
(EuropeanMaritimeSafety Agency) reported that in
2014 there were 331 cases of Groundings or
Stranding, 378 cases of Contacts and 293 cases of
Collisions.Morethan250personslosttheirlivesand
2000 were injured in those incidents, apart from the
financial loss and pollut
ion 1. The numbers
worldwide are definitely higher as EMSA reports
only on incidents reported by EU member states.
Most important, 67% of the reported incidents were
relatedtoHumanErroneousActions.
The reasons why so many incidents happen
becauseofHumanErroneousActionsisattributedby
manytodeterioratingstandardsofmarinersandthe
tendency to employ cheap crews. Complaints about
deterioratinglevelofseafarersareverycommon,and
can be heard of at any marine conference or
gathering. Possiblyitis true, but we do not see that
only so‐called “cheap crews” are having more than
the average number of accidents. Others take a
somewhat different approach and blame the
“advanced technology as well as the of‐quoted
humanelement
2
.“andconsequentlyseethesolution
(or part of it) by providing the mariners with
standardized modes of operation – the so called S‐
MODE(inotherwords,theclaimis“marinersarenot
so smart, give them simple systems”) .Several high
profile incidents, for example the groundings of the
CostaConcordiaandtheRena,orthecollisionofthe
BalticAce,donotagreewithbothassumptions(two
of the three were manned by well‐trained European
officers).Webelievethatthereasonofthoseaccidents
canbeattributedtocockinessandover‐confidenceof
EDA: New System for Improving Navigation Standards
(Totem Plus)
A.Rahav
TotemPlus,RamatHasharon,Israel
ABSTRACT: EDA is a tool for auditing vessel’s performance that helps installing strict safety navigation
standardsonships.Thepracticeofinvestigatingeverynear‐misseventiscommoninaviation,butunheardof
in the maritime industry. At the same time, major accidents attributed to human errors are increasing,
includingcollisionsandgroundingstha
tcostlives,pollutetheseasandloseproperty.
TheideaofEDA,shortforE‐navigationDataAudit,issimple:analyzethenavigationaldatafromVDRand/or
ECDIS,findtheeventsthatshouldnothavehappened(“nearmisses”),andinstructyourshipsthatitisnotthe
standardyouwantonyourvessels.EDAallowsremoteaudit
ingonhowthebridgeteamisperformingand
howtheship is handled,asrequiredbyISMbutseldom done. A pilotprojectfortheEDAwas carriedout
during 6 months. The first data showed 18 events of close proximit
y (“Near‐collision”); 4 of them showed
severeviolationoftheInternationalRegulationsforPreventingCollisionsatSea(COLREG,1972).Asexpected,
aftersendingtheEDAfirstreporttotheship,NOsucheventswerefoundinthenext5monthsofthepilot
project.
http://www.transnav.eu
the International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 11
Number 3
September 2017
DOI:10.12716/1001.11.03.02
410
thebridgeteam,andevenmoresotolackofproper
supervision,auditingandfeedback.Norealactionis
taken to check the current navigation performance
onboard in order to assimilate navigation safety
standards.Itshouldbeemphasizedthatthenumbers
of accidents above are those of real and reported
accidents, while at sea there are many more “Close
call”incidents.Thoseincidentsarenotreported, not
analyzed and never learned from. A system of
feedbacktothe navigatorsisbadlyneeded,onethat
will make every “close call” incident known,
accountableandlearnedfrom.
2 NEARMISSES
In the aviation industry, near misses are taken very
seriouslyandadministrationsinvestigatesuchevents
indepth.Itispossiblyeasierfortheaviationindustry
becausemostoftheairtrafficissupervisedbytraffic
control centers. Ships, on the other hand, still enjoy
the freedom of the seas and near misses are not
recordedorinvestigated(mostofthem).Thisfactis
indeed a violation of the ISM code, which requires
auditingofshipperformanceandrecordingsofnear
misses. Class NK Safety Management System, for
example,requires3“ReportingofHazardousOccurrence
(Nearmiss)andMeasurestoaddressthem‐Arehazardous
occurrences (Near miss) reported to the company ? Are
these reports investigated and analyzed by the company?
Have these matters, together with preventive measures,
been brought to the attention of other ships concerned?
“.Unfortunately,inmostcasesthisrequirementisnot
followed,andendswithpapershufflingforthesake
ofbureaucracy,possiblybecauseuptonowtherewas
no adequate tool to find such events. We cannot
expect the mariners to report it voluntarily, as it is
againsthumannatureforonetoincriminatehimself,
and even honest mariners that experienced
a near
missmaynotalwaysadmitthatitwasindeedanear
miss.Thedefinitionofwhatisindeeda“nearmiss”
may vary according to several technical parameters
such as ship’s type, maneuverability, geographic
location etc., but also by the standards of the
investigator. One cable distance from
a ship
overtaken may look safe to one mariner, but not
prudent to another. We have different expectations
(andtolerance) from an experienced pilotentering a
busyharborthanfromajuniorofficerinopenwaters.
Somecompanieshavestandardsofsafedistanceand
safe clearance below the keel, but those
are many
times overlooked. We will see below how this
obstaclecanbedealtwith.
3 DATASOURCE
Modern bridge systems are equipped with various
recording capabilities, such as a dedicated Voyage
Data Recorder (VDR) which should record all
navigationaldata for 30days 4, and alsowith other
systems
recordingtheirdatainternallysuchasECDIS
(and possibly other systems). Analysis of recorded
historyfornearmissesispossibletodayand,aswill
beshownfurther,isalreadyavailablebyEDA.
4 EDA(E‐NAVIGATIONDATAAUDIT)–
INTRODUCTION
EDA is a software program designed to analyze
historicaldata recorded
byECDIS and VDR, to find
eventsof“nearmiss”asdefinedby theuser,andto
allow analysis of navigational data. The program is
currentlyworkingonTotemECDISandTotemVDR,
andanalysiscanbedonebyTotemPlusasaservice
toownersordirectlybythe
owners.TheaimofEDA
isnottofindandpunishculprits,buttopromulgate
thecompanydesiretokeepsafenavigationstandards.
Consequently,the“nearmisses”shouldbebroughtto
management attention in order to assist in
establishing a dialog with the ships resulting in
superiornavigationsafetystandardsacross
thefleet.
Itshouldbenoted,however,thatthesocalled“near
misses” found are analyzed based on data recorded
by ECDIS and/or VDR alone, and the navigators or
masters may explain the situation by giving more
information such as visibility or sea state or special
circumstances that may shed
different light on the
actionstakenonboardandfurtherenhancethesafety
dialog.
5 USINGTHEPROGRAMANDEVENT
DEFINITION
Theprogramisfriendly and its use isintuitive.The
user can definethe criteria that he wants to findby
using recorded information such as speed, depth,
distance from other
ships etc.(distance can be
calculatedfromeitherAISorARPA).“Nearcollision”,
for example, can be defined as an event where
another ship passed at a distance smaller than 0.4
miles,whilesteamingatspeedgreaterthan15knots
andatadepthgreaterthan30meters(seepicture1).
Speed
andDepthvaluesarechosenasabovetolimit
thefindingstoopenseaandtofilteroutentrytoports
etc. Other events (such as near grounding) can be
similarlydeclared.Oncethecriteriaforthesearchare
definedtheprogramwillsearchallavailabledatafiles
tofinda
possiblematch.Thecriteriacanalsobegiven
atitleandbesavedforfutureuse.
Figure1.SearchforNearCollision
In the example in figure 1, showing a search for
“NearCollision”,twoeventsmatchingtherequested
searchparameters (as defined above) were detected.
Replay of the exact data showed that one event is
justified,whiletheothereventfromthetwoshowed
clearly that the ship was violating the International
RegulationsforPreventingCollisionsatSea.