Maritime Safety, Security, Cyber Security and Environmental Challenges: Human Factors - Dr Jai Acharya

ABSTRACT The prime intention of this write-up, besides giving a brief analysis of the maritime safety
regime, is to discuss and propose some ideas that can enhance the current maritime safety
performance, the implementation of maritime security (ISPS Code) coupled with maritime cyber security
compliance and the environmental protection regulatory system, taking into consideration of 'human
factors' affecting overall performance on implementation. The most relevant concerns are how to
integrate the human factors into: - Improving the performance of maritime safety, security and
environment protection practices on board ship and offshore installations. - Achieving the most effective
management techniques pertaining to maritime safety, security and environmental issues for ships and
offshore installations within the regulatory frame work. - Achieving the most effective IT / OT
management techniques on maritime cyber security. - Human factors' affecting overall performance on
implementation. INTRODUCTION The human element is widely acknowledged as the major cause of
safety and security risks in the maritime industry. The intention of this article is to discover the
underlying reasons why humans make mistakes and how effectively these mistakes can be prevented.
Even though it is unlikely that human errors will ever be completely prevented, there is growing
recognition that many human performance problems originate from a system failure within
organisations to develop an effective policy for managing human reliability. After introduction of STCW
95 (as amended), the ISM and ISPS Code in the maritime and offshore industry, it was optimistically
believed that maritime safety standards and actual performance will be drastically enhanced. However,
despite the enormous funding for providing the resources on maritime education, training, strict
regulatory regime and sophisticated automation on board vessels, the safety performance is still a
matter of concern. Human errors begin during the design stage, extending beyond the process and
workplace design, into the construction and continuing into the design of management systems for
operations and maintenance. www.imare.in June 2020 Marine Engineers Review (India) 15 16 Marine
Engineers Review (India) www.imare.in June 2020 Such systems include management and training
policies and procedural development and standard operating procedure (SOP) development. This article
intends to explain briefly, the effect of the human factors, provide insights into current knowledge of
human errors and how these can be minimised. It is also intended to enhance understanding of the
possible causes of human errors and how to reduce their occurrence by changing the culture of the
organisation and the day to day approach to handling the processes. Formal and informal workshops
may be held throughout the period with the crew on board, to educate them on the basic concept of
potential human errors and provide continuous training on how to eliminate the human error element.
Human elements affecting safety are derived from the study of human behaviour, response and
performance in crisis scenarios in the normal working environment. MARITIME SAFETY AND SECURITY
Safety implies freedom from danger. In practice, maritime safety refers to the level of danger that is
acceptable in a real-life situation, when a threat and its consequences are impact on human beings,
goods and assets in the system. Different levels of risk threat are attached to different modes and to
different activities. The acceptable level of risk threat is judged according to the choices made by
individual(s) in a specific scenario, which may involve the judgement of a marine engineer officer, deck
officer, and/or other relevant people on board or ashore. The safety performance of a technical system
is the measurable consequence of the extent to which it behaves as expected, with and without the
interaction of human beings. Maritime security is the series of planned activities to protect human life,
assets and maritime transport systems from the real and perceived threats of crime, terrorism,
negligence, technical board are human beings and are not perfect. The length of the stay on board a
ship or offshore facility is far more than that of aviation sector personnel in their aircraft. Though it does
not give a clean slate for making mistakes which may lead to catastrophic casualties, it should be
considered that a seafarer is also subject to the same human failings as the next best person on the
street. What is required is a detailed in-depth study to understand the problems faced on board and
ultimately to find ways of overcoming them by training them with the necessary technical know-how,
implant dedication, professional pride, discipline and loyalty to the profession and their failures, human
factors or natural phenomena. OBJECTIVE The intention here is to identify the factors related to human
acts (inherent, intentional or accidental), which may cause potential failure in the established safety and
security s y s t e m / p r o c e d u r e s a n d t h e implementation on board a ship or an offshore facility
and then to develop a c o m m o n m e t h o d o l o g y f o r investigating maritime accidents and the
reporting of these incidents, thereby improving the understanding of human factors related to those
events. When safety performances in the maritime industry are compared with the aviation industry (a
much younger industry), the aviation industry supersedes. It is only in recent times, that safety regime
implementation and its performance has become a prime concern to the maritime industry and
addressed on war footing scale. It must be understood that those working on employers and relevant
organisations. It is essential to understand seafarers as human beings and to take a closer look at some
of the human factors that may influence their performance. So far very little attention has been paid to
the physiological and psychological factors that affect human performance i n th e m a r it i m e e n v ir o
nm e n t, particularly when away from shore comforts for long periods. MARITIME SAFETY CULTURE
Maritime safety culture can be defined as a culture in which there is considerable endeavour to reduce
risks to the individual, ships and offshore facilities and the marine environment, to a level that is 'as low
as is reasonably practicable'. For an organisation making appropriate efforts to attain such a goal, the
economic and social benefits will be forthcoming, and a sound balance b et wee n m ar it ime s af et y a
nd commercial aspects can be maintained. The challenge for all of us in the maritime industry is to
enhance technical, operational and safety management standards consistently and address those
factors responsible for failure in meeting and maintaining these standards at all times. A further
challenge is to identify and evaluate factors influencing the Safety Culture and to turn them into
practical and effective mechanisms for further developing a Quality and Safety Culture throughout the
maritime community. INTEGRATION OF 'HUMAN ELEMENT' IN MARITIME SAFETY REGIME IMO has
developed its strategy to address the human element in support of the IMO strategic plan adopted by
resolution A.944 (23) / A 970 (24) and the human element vision, principles and goals are listed in
resolution A.947 (23). This strategy depends specifically on the principles and visions expressed in those
resolutions. It aims to be simple, practicable and to address how the understanding of 'human factor'
can be improved in the whole stakeholder community in the maritime transport When safety
performances in the maritime industry are compared with the aviation industry (a much younger
industry), the aviation industry supersedes. www.imare.in June 2020 Marine Engineers Review (India) 17
system. However, to make best use of limited resources, this strategy is directed to providing the
assistance to maritime regulatory regimes, ship owners, ship managers, seafarers and other stake
holders in the maritime industry to enhance safety, security and the protection of the marine
environment. In this context, an action plan for the human element has been developed containing a list
of human elementrelated issues, together with specific actions to be taken by various agencies of IMO
and regulatory regimes. Studies have shown (Rothblum,2000) that human error contributes to: - 84 88%
of tanker accidents, - - 79% of towing vessel groundings, - 89 96% of collisions, - - 75% of fires and
explosions. These estimations are still relevant. Thus, the maritime transportation system is 25 times
riskier than the air transport system according to the accounts for the deaths for every 100 km.
Intensification of sea trade for last 10 years causes the increasing of potential risk to the ship safety
(Transnav 09/2013; Berg 2013). One further example is the cruise ship Costa Concordia grounding at the
Italian island of Giglio in January 2012 which will probably labelled as human error (Porathe & Shaw
2012). CROSS CULTURE FACTOR IN HUMAN RESPONSE The Cross-Cultural Management Practices on
board are the need of the present times as modern ships are deployed with seafarers of different
nationalities and various cultures. The officers and ratings of different cultures may have power distance
and psychological barriers, which can be a major factor in communication failures, c a u s i n g v a c u u
m s i n c l e a r understanding of instructions and orders. This can have a severe impact on safety and
security performance on board. So far, no adequate attention has installations. Fatigue has been
recognised all around the world as a major contributor to maritime casualties, accidents and incidents.
There have been many incidents where fatigue has been suspected to be contributing or causing
transportation and industrial accidents; however, it is not justified to identify 'fatigue' as the main cause
and vital link between the 'unsafe acts' and 'decisions making' which leads to the accidents. The fatigue
state of the persons involved could be avoided by monitoring the working culture on board. The
implementation of standard working hours and adequate rest hours can improve the working efficiency
of been paid to cross cultural factor in seafarers training curriculum. Learning about seafarers working
with different nationalities and cultures should be made compulsory. A well trained, loyal, dedicated and
disciplined workforce aboard and ashore is the call of the day for the good performance of the current
safety regime on board. The mindsets of ship owners/operators and managers also need to be changed.
The decades old approaches need to be revived in order to have a loyal, dedicated and disciplined
workforce of seafarers on board. A very serious 'think tank' group should be engaged to address the
current challenges on crewing matters, including the education, training and cross-cultural
management. FATIGUE Fatigue and safety have always gone hand-in-hand and it would be in
everybody's interest to seek ways to minimise the 'fatigue factor'. This should particularly cover all those
seafarers who have to perform critical functions on board ships or offshore the seafarers onboard and,
up to a certain extent, can eliminate the 'fatigue' factor. At one time, fatigue was discounted as a
potential cause for human error. A common myth existed that fatigue could be prevented by addressing
cha rac ter ist ic s of p ersonal it y, intelligence, education, training, skill, compensation, motivation,
physical size, strength, attractiveness or professionalism. Also, the lack of scientifically accepted
information on how fatigue affects not only mood and feelings, but also individual and team p er f orm
ance , ha s const ra ine d investigators and analysts. Further, guidance on how to investigate fatigue and
build the links between a person's recent history and potential impairment has been lacking. Unlike
alcohol and narcotic drugs, which can be measured by, for example, blood tests, there is no
unambiguous physical or chemical test which can tell us that a person is impaired to a certain extent by
fatigue. As it has been recognised at IMO that fatigue is a major contributor to maritime causalities, to
address it watch-keeping requirements were introduced into the STCW Convention as a part of the 1995
amendments and subsequent ones. It was also noticed during this time that there were conflicting
requirements between the requirements of the STCW Convention and ILO Convention No.180. In order
to resolve the issue and to avoid confusion in the international shipping industry as a result of the
requirements of these two conventions, a Joint working group consisting of representatives of both IMO
and ILO was convened. This resulted in the development of a single d oc ument “Guid eli nes for the
Development of Tables of Seafarer's Shipboard Working Arrangements and Formats of Records for
Seafarer's Hours of Work and Hours of Rest”. Taking into considerations of all of these and many more
relevant issues, the ILO/IMO MLC-2006 was evolved and entered into force from 20 Aug 2013 So far, no
adequate attention has been paid to cross cultural factor in seafarers training curriculum. 18 Marine
Engineers Review (India) www.imare.in June 2020 accordingly. MARITIME CYBER SECURITY The
maritime industry plays a critical role transporting 90% of the world's trade and it is imperative that the
industry remains resilient by addressing the growing risk from Cyber threats. Any maritime organisation
that exchanges, stores and maintains the information or allows external entities to use their shipboard
computers for r e p o r t w r i t i n g , v e n d o r s / s u b - contractors using USB ports of the vessels for
exchanging the information, or simply use to copy/paste the data inputs, ship crew using internet
facilities onboard should consider purchasing cyber insurance to protect themselves. It is generally
observed that a large percentage of maritime organisations and ships have a problematic shortage of
cybersecurity skills and security teams continue to fall behind in responding to alerts. Short staffed
maritime cyber security teams often lack the skills updates needed to operate effectively. Even with a
combination of automated triage and investigation tools, organisations still struggle to keep up. Effective
maritime cybersecurity is a matter of revealing the signs of emerging cyber attacks before they strike,
making predictive analytics for enterprise security the best defence in endpoint detection and response
to stop threats cold. Endpoint prevention solutions have improved up to a certain extent, but they are
still not effective at stopping 100 percent of cyberattacks. Across an entire security stack, a security team
can face anywhere from 10,000 to more than 1 million alerts per day. Predictive Analytics (PA) can
reduce this load and improve endpoint detection to: - activities and events that Capture happen
throughout the digital infrastructure to recognise and understand patterns of behaviour. - to weigh,
Automate cybersecurity prioritise and correlate alerts so that security teams can focus on tackling the
most important threats. - to Apply predictive analytics network, endpoint, cloud, email and identity data
to better detect when "bad actors" attempt to compromise the cyber infrastructure and to stop them. -
Use Intelligent End Point Detection and Response (EDR) tools to reduce the volume of false positives and
a s s i s t w i t h a l e r t r e s p o n s e prioritisation. In 2018, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore reported
that phishing attacks on businesses have increased by almost 10 times since last year. In addition, the
Singapore Cyber Landscape have notice that there is a shift in the cyber-attack trend with an increase
phishing attacks targeted at technology companies instead of companies in the banking and finance
sector. On top of that, during the Trump-Kim Summit in June 2018, Singapore was mentioned as the top
cyber-attack target around the world. Many maritime businesses, especially ship management
companies, tend to think that they are safe and that cyberattacks only happens in large corporation.
However, in the recent years, many maritime SMEs and large shipping companies have suffered severely
from cyber-attacks. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that all maritime organisations should brace
cyber-security insurance for their
mobile assets and shore office. It

should be included in the company

policy to purchase and maintain a

cyber-insurance policy to protect

themselves from possible cyberattacks.

CONCLUSION

Although the maritime industry has a

long history, safety performance

records are relatively poor and cyber

security is rather most vulnerable at this

point of time. The industry leaders must

seriously address the root causes of

poor safety performance including

cyber security component. Marine

insurance industry and maritime law

professionals can contribute more

effectively through their research cells

and can widen their focus beyond the

loss and damage of property and

blaming of the parties concerned.

Addressing human factors must be

considered to be of fundamental

importance and analysed accordingly.

This will not only raise standards, but

also bring visible enhancement in

safety performance within the maritime

industry. It is logical to link the human

factor with human weaknesses,

ne gl i g e n c e, c a r el es sne ss an d

indifferent attitudes. The strength of

human intelligence and dare-devil

attitude also need to be considered and

seriously addressed.

The above discussed human factors

are also applicable to the performance

lapses in overall maritime security and

environment protection, both of which

are major challenges for the operation

of well secured ships (protection from

piracy, terrorism, attacks by radicals,

cyber-attacks etc.) and clean oceans

(prevention of marine environmental

pollution).

A further research work on the

integration of the human factor in

mar itime s af et y, s ec uri ty and

environmental protection will be highly

interesting and challenging at the same

time.
It should be noted that all the maritime

organisations need to keep a good

pace with times and prepare for cybersecurity compliance directives based

on the IMO Guidelines on Maritime

Cyber Risk Management (MSCFAL.1/CIRC.3) for their mobile assets

and shore office. It should be included

in the company policy to purchase and

maintain a cyber-insurance policy to

protect themselves from possible

cyber-attacks.

The IMO Convention on maritime cyber

security will be enforced from 01

January, 2021. All the shipping

companies / vessels complying

ISM/ISPS Code would be obliged to

includeshipcybersecurity

management plan (CySMP) as an

independent bridging document

between the international safety

management system (SMS) and ship

security plan (SSP) under the

established ISM and ISPS Code

Compliance.

REFERENCES

1. Rothblum, 2000 - Human Error and Marine

Safety

2. Transnav 09/2013 - Human Factors and

Safety Culture in Maritime Safety (revised

3. Berg, 2013 - Human Factors and Safety

Culture in Maritime Safety (revised)

4. Subi Abraham; Suku Nair -Predictive

cyber security analytics framework: A

non-homogenous Markov model for

security quantification

5. VMware (2015); - VMware Carbon Black

cloud

6. Porathe & Shaw 2012 Working with the

human element: human factors and

technical innovation from Efficient Sea

and on to ACCSEAS, Proceedings of the

International Symposium.

7. Information on Ships, ISIS 2012, 30 31 -

August 2012, Hamburg, Germany.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Dr Jai Acharya [MSc (Maritime Studies);

B.E. (Hons) EEE; FIE; CEng.] is a multifaceted Marine Engineer. He is currently

thePrincipalConsultantwith

International Maritime Management &

Consultancy Services (IMMC) and the

Director of International Ocean Institute

(IOI), Singapore.

Email : immc.singapore@gmail.com