Fatigue

Fatigue is a main cause of the lack of situational awareness. Fatigue occurs in two different categories:
temporary fatigue and chronic fatigue. Temporary fatigue has an easy to find cause and remedy. Such as
more sleep.

Chronic fatigue is longer lasting and more thoroughgoing than temporary fatigue. It characterises itself by
a state of constant weariness that increases on a longer term. It decreases your mental capacity and that
is the problem for officers on board vessels. When the mental capacity is lower, the assessment abilities
are also lower and therefore the chance you make a mistake is higher.

Fatigue is not the same thing as sleepiness, although it is often accompanied by a desire to sleep and a
lack of motivation to do anything else. (MayoClinic, 2014) The definition of fatigue is: a reduction in
physical and/or mental capacity as the result of physical, mental, or emotional exertion which may impair
nearly all physical abilities including: strength, speed, reaction time, coordination, decision making or
balance. (TNO, 2008)

Most of the time fatigue can be cured by changing some of your routines in order to give personnel
more rest. However it can also be part of something bigger than just a routine issue. In that case it is
caused by a medical condition such as a heart disease.

The causes of fatigue can be divided in 3 types: lifestyle conditions, psychological conditions and
mentioned earlier medical condition. Lifestyle conditions are conditions caused by the way we live. For
example drinking a lot of coffee to stay alert. Psychological conditions are conditions caused by mental
problems like depression. Medical conditions are caused by illnesses like COPD and Cancer. (A list of all
the causes sorted by condition can be found in appendix 1.)

In order to reduce the influence of fatigue on situational awareness it is important to be able to take action
against fatigue in an effective way. After field research it became clear that the crew’s negligence might be
part of the problem. At Anthony Veder the resting time of the crew is monitored, but not the sleeping time.
Resting time includes eating, reading, sleeping and so on. It is possible that someone who has 10 hours of
resting time will just sleep for 5 hours, simply because they are doing something else with their time.
(Kloos, 2014)(Interview in appendix 3)

Also the watch cycle is a problem, because if you have 2 times ±6 hours resting time it is very hard to get
enough sleep, because it is nearly impossible to fall asleep instantly. When the watch cycle will be like 8
hours work, 8 hours rest, 4 hours work, 4 hours rest, the person will have a longer continuous resting time
where it is easier to get your sleep and a short resting time where it is possible to read or something else.
But this unfortunately could not work, because of a Dutch ARBO law called ‘pauzeregeling’ or pause control
in English. The ‘pauzeregeling’ states that every continuous working time over five and half hours and under
10 hours requires a brake of at least 30 minutes (Arbo, 2015). So it is not possible yet to use this new watch
cycle without changing this law. (Kloos, 2014)

Information overload

When an officer has his watch he is obligated to always use every possibility to check if there is any
danger. Modern technology such as: radar, Ecdis, Navtex, ARPA and VHF provide a lot of information.
Looking outside and the amount of information can together become too much to handle. This only
occurs in crowded seas.
Because of all the procedures that have to be done by the officer, it is possible that mistakes happen due to
the amount of information disseminated over the bridge. The stream of information could have the result
that the officer of the watch does not see a danger in time to take action or he could overlook the danger.

In conclusion, information overload can cause reduced situational awareness in two ways. The first one is
causing fatigue by having information overload for a longer period. The second one is missing the
information needed by presenting less useful information on the equipment.

Track line attachment syndrome

Track line attachment syndrome (TAS) is the

tendency of navigators, commonly younger
mates, but sometimes even seasoned
captains, to develop an unhealthy and
obsessive need to place and keep a pictorial
representation of their vessel upon a track
line or series of lines presented on a
computer monitor. (global cargo consultancy
management, 2015). When a ship has to alter
her course to prevent collision, the vessel will
go from the track line. Although it is really
easy to make a new track line
from the current position, navigators Figure 1: example of a trackline on an ECDIS
with this syndrome have to get back on
the old track line. This often leads to not using other navigational aids than the ECS/ECDIS such as radar and
looking outside. The syndrome is a reason of loss of situational awareness, because of the tendency of not
using the other navigational-aids. In that way the officer is less aware of the vessels in the surrounding area,
that possibly are on a collision course.
Having TAS for a longer period can lead to Track line Separation Anxiety Disorder (TSAD). TSAD is a danger
to the navigation. It leads to a very obsessive way of following their track line and loss the idea of GPS
malfunction. In this way a person can sail aground without knowing it till it happens.

In short TAS or TSAD lowers the situational awareness; because it lowers the use of all the equipment,
accept of the ECDIS, what leads to not using everything possible to ensure safety.

Trust and educate

Another possible cause is a lack of trust in the people below the officer. This happens mostly to the
crewmembers with higher ranks, like captains or first officers. What happens is that the higher ranked crew
member does not show trust in the lower ranked crew member and spends a lot of extra time to make sure
everything goes according to plan. In this situation education and trust have to be carried out. This is where
you educate the person with a lower rank and then trust them that they will do their job as expected. It may
be difficult, but otherwise the higher ranked officer has to spend a lot of time ensuring no mistakes are
being made.