Abstract
The new inspection regime that entered into force in 2011, allowed the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to change the target of inspecting 25 % of individual ships calling at each Member State, to a system based on the ship-risk profile. The latter combines a set of generic and historical factors (e.g., ship’s type and age, number of deficiencies and detentions, performance of ISM companies) that assists the work of port state control inspectors. Despite those improvements, prioritising ships for safety inspection is still a challenge, not only for authorities, but also to other stakeholders such as classification societies, ship owners, managers and operators. This paper introduces the recently EU-funded project SAFEPEC—Innovative risk-based tools for ship safety inspection. It aims at decreasing the current workload on surveyors through the development of a software prototype that enables the interoperability and coherent interpretation of the different inspection data sources that are available. Additionally, SAFEPEC will develop sensor systems for long-distance monitoring, tracking of failures and collection of near-real-time data from critical ship areas, such as the hull structure and shipboard equipment. As in the entire maritime community, the area of ship inspections is male dominated, although there is a slight shift seen. A small literature review and a survey among both males and females working in the maritime world, showed that both the physical aspects of the job and the difficulties to balance work and family, might still be reasons for females to avoid this work. The new technologies developed within the SAFEPEC project can help to increase job opportunities for women in the future.
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- 1.
The Paris MOU is the organization, consisting of maritime Administrations from 27 member states (Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). They annually inspect more than 18,000 foreign ships in the Paris MoU ports.
- 2.
The instrument is known as the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 147.
- 3.
MS under the Paris MOU agreed to inspect 25 % of the estimated number of individual foreign merchant ships which enter their ports during a 12 month period.
- 4.
The Tokyo MOU is the organization, consisting of maritime Administrations from 19 member states (Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Fiji, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam) with cooperators and observers. In 2013, 31,018 inspections were carried out on ships registered under 98 flags.
- 5.
Port State Control database.
- 6.
See also paper “Inspection and control in regulating the occupational health and safety in the tanker industry: The perspective of the regulated” by S. Bhattacharya presented at the University of Aberdeen’s Work, Employment & Society (WES) Conference, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, 12–14 September, 2007.
- 7.
It is a kind of probability theories and represents the relationship between propositions or variables, for modelling decision-making under uncertainty.
- 8.
93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 was repealed by EU Directive 2003/88/EC of 4 November 2003. It provides EU workers the right to a minimum number of holidays each year, rest breaks, and rest of at least 11 h in any 24 h; restricts excessive night work; a day off after a weeks work; and provides for a right to work no more than 48 h per week.
- 9.
Email communication with P. Dolby on the 7th February 2014.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the persons that voluntarily participated in the questionnaire survey. Some of the information presented in this paper about the SAFEPEC project is based in the proposal submitted by the respective consortium to the European Commission (www.safepec.eu).
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Calderón, M., Illing, D., Schipperen, I., Antão, P. (2015). Improving the Current Regime for Ship Safety Inspections: Opportunities for Technology Research and Women Employment. In: Kitada, M., Williams, E., Froholdt, L. (eds) Maritime Women: Global Leadership. WMU Studies in Maritime Affairs, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45385-8_20
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