Lessons from maritime accidents are conventionally used to inform safety improvements in design and operation of ships. However, this process is only as good as the core understanding derived from accident analysis is. The current explanation of accidents is limited to direct and contributing causal factors, whereas the role of a wider socio-technical context that has given rise to causal mechanisms behind major maritime accidents in recent years is left unexplained. The paper describes analysis results of maritime incidents and accidents occurred over the last decade with passenger ships, with the purpose to illuminate the prevailing causal factors, not least the systemic ones. The results show where the weak links in maritime safety control are (e.g., interactions between ship operators and equipment manufacturers), what their role in accident causation is, and how they can be strengthened. The study seeks to provide valuable input for enhancements in overall maritime safety control and proactive safety management at the ship and shipping company levels.
The roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) ships are true workhorses of coastal and deep-sea shipping. They are valued for their versatility to transport heterogeneous cargo and short turnaround times in ports. However, the optimal utilisation of cargo space has been inherently problematic with the Ro-Ro concept. In view of the existing attempts to contrive optimal stowage plans, the paper proposes three practical improvements with respect to the state of the art. The improvements lead to a finer approach to ship stability, fire safety, and cargo handling efficiency when optimising cargo stowage on Ro-Ro decks. Formally, we express the stowage problem as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem and solve it to optimality. The paper outlines the mathematical formulation, provides a numerical example, and studies practical application aspects.
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