- Email: [email protected]
Sea transport safety — A challenge to European maritime society
Safety Science 19 (1995) 279-285
Sea transport safety - A challenge to European maritime society Jens Froese Fachhochschule Hamburg, Institute of Ship Operation, Maritime Transport und Simulation (ISSUS), Hamburg, Germany
Abstract Safety matters are boring, bothersome orjust a cost factor. These are some of the arguments whjch prevent safety issues from being treated in the same way as, for example, transport logistics, i.e., rationally aiming at optimum results. National legal evolutions, resulting in distinct rules and regulations, are another handicap for a European approach to common marine safety standards. Political changes within the European Community offer a chance to create a marine safety system which complies with developments in shipping, operational practices, and requirements resulting from casualty investigations and statistics. The establishment of a European Marine Transport Safety Board under the umbrella of a European Transport Safety Board is proposed to mutually benefit from road, rail, air and sea transport knowledge.
1. Foreword If the number of rules and regulations dealing with marine safety were an indicator for the level of safety obtained, there would be nothing to worry about. And since their number is still increasing, future prospects should be bright. Unfortunately that is not the case. But then how does one deal with the challenge of protecting human beings, the environment, company investments and marine economical interests such as fishing and tourist beaches if not by creating more and tougher rules? We have got a unique chance. The abolition of the borders within the European Community by the end of this year requires common rules, regulations and procedures. Of course there is some danger that too many cooks will spoil the broth by everybody adding his preferred spice, i.e., rule, on top of what is already there. We might even need a small “revolt” by those subjected to existing regulations to enforce new and improved approaches for enhancements. 0925-7535/95/$09.50
0 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDIO925-7535(94)00030-l
280
J. FroeselSafety
Science 19 (1995)
279-285
2. Marine safety
“Safety matters are boring, bothersome or just a cost factor” is an often-heard opinion. So even if it is for their own sake, it is difficult to convince people to perform safely or to pay for safety. Unsafe practices do not necessarily result in accidents. Thus, it is not easy to prove benefits. The line of argument should therefore follow a more abstract approach by treating casualties as “undesired events” similar to, for example, technical disturbances of a production system. For this purpose a number of analytical methods are available which might convince people more than just logical reasoning. It is probably because motivation to avoid technical defects is generally better than that to avoid injuries. There is nothing cynical about that: it is just because many people mentally suppress picturing possible events they ale really afraid of whereas improved safety requires a very conscious realization of what could happen. Since the term “marine safety” is somewhat vague and might not always be used in exactly the same way, a definition is required. Within this paper, marine safety means “a condition which is obtained by applying all reasonable measures minimizing potential dangers to men, objects and environment caused by operating vessels”. Safety measures can comprise active measures such as - technical measures and provisions when manufacturing or operating a system, - organizational measures within a working process, @#.&havioural measures to influence attitudes, or passive measures aimed at protection if threatening conditions cannot be avoided by active measures. Often, risk is used to measure safety. Normally risk is determined by a figure resulting from multiplying average cost of casualty by probability of occurrence. Thus a real disaster which is unlikely to happen (but not impossible) might lead to a risk similar to that of a minor casualty with a high probability. Therefore it should be discussed whether the term accepted risk is appropriate for deciding what society might have to tolerate and what not. Assessment of potential danger describing the severity of a casualty elucidates much better what could happen.
3. Rules and regulations Most practitioners believe that rules and regulations are only made to prevent harm whereas lawyers require that rules and regulations follow clear and unambiguous principles for deciding after an incident who is to blame and, even more important within business life, which party is to be held liable for damage. With regard to the preventive character of rules and regulations, the requirements are - to reflect real situations, - to be easy to read and to interpret, - to be at hand when needed. Within democratically organized societies, legal regulations take quite a long time from first recognizing that there is a need for change or amendment to finally coming into force. It must therefore be accepted that this process cannot keep pace with continuously accel-
.I. Froese/SafetyScience19(1995)279-285
281
erating technical changes. Technical rules which can be adapted faster to ongoing developments must fill that gap. This, however, is only possible to a very limited extent. Agreed standards worked out by privately organized bodies cover a large area of detail, but these too lag behind technical development. The state of the art, describing in detail how a technical system should be constructed and how it should work and be operated, is not laid down comprehensively. Certainly there are professionals and scientific people with the potential of putting the jigsaw together which will finally present required knowledge and skills. However, it is not done on a regular basis. Manufacturers’ manuals, experts’ opinions, university papers and results from court cases where specialists were consulted must be collected, requiring a lot of effort. Thus, it must be accepted that rules and regulations can only provide the shell for safe systems and operation. Up-to-date knowledge and skills in great detail must be derived from other sources. Within democratic societies, where the actions of politicians are strongly governed by the desire to be re-elected, creation of new rules and regulations provides a convenient way of demonstrating political efforts to the public. Especially after an accident, when the press calls for action to avoid similar casualties in the future, a working group is established immediately for development of new regulations to amend rather than to replace current ones. The result is obvious: the number of rules and regulations to be followed by continuously reduced crews, i.e., fewer and fewer people aboard, is much too large to be at hand within an operational environment which very seldom provides enough time to search through the books or ask other experts.
4. Current developments
in sea transport
Increases in individual transport, relatively low cargo transport costs and just-in-time concepts have caused a road traffic situation which in some regions is not far from collapse. At the same time, scientists are warning us that jet flights must be dramatically reduced, because exhaust gas is destroying the earth’s atmosphere. If that recommendation is followed, large numbers of passengers and tons of cargo will add to existing land transport. Now that the Eastern countries have been released from the Iron Curtain, their economic development, which is expected to happen soon (hopefully), will cause additional flows of cargo throughout Europe. Sea transport capacity could probably be increased to allow for the shifting of passengers and cargo from land to sea. That, however, will require new types of vessels, harbour facilities and connections to rail and road. The use of very fast vessels will need advanced shipborne and shore-based control and surveillance systems. Fast intermodal flow of goods must be accompanied by integrated information systems indicating the nature and amount of goods, current location, departure and arrival time, packaging, hazards, ownership and many other items of information needed for deciding on optimum transport, which does not necessarily have to be the fastest one, and to allow for dispatching and clearing procedures which do not cause any delay. Handling of goods when being transferred from one carrier to another must be further minimized to save time and manpower.
282
J. Froese/Safery
Science 19 (1995) 279-285
Authorities and private companies have recently got that message, and activities have been initiated in many areas. Research projects have been launched by the European Commission as well as by national sponsoring administrations in parallel with new designs of ships and handling equipment. It seems, however, that there is a lack of integration of all these efforts. There is no global concept available which provides the framework for healthy competition between various solutions so as to finally end up with an optimum solution. Not only an economic and ecological optimum,but also an optimum of safety of transport. They, in fact, must not differ too much from each other, because the more logically a system is designed the fewer disturbances, i.e., deviations from what is expected, will occur.
5. Operational practices In March 1989, “Seaways”, the Nautical Institute magazine, published an article by Rear-Admiral D.J. Mackenzie, Chairman of The Nautical Institute Ship Operational Standards Working Group, which concludes: “I hope I have been able to demonstrate that the evolution of international commercial shipping has provided a system which is wide open to abuse because there is no easy way to enforce good operating practices”. That was more than three years ago; no improvement has been observed since then. The shipping scene nowadays is characterized by operators just managing capital investment rather than acting as prudent shipowners. The global objective of such management is to maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with that; making a profit is the natural motivation of entrepreneurs. But because shipping must operate against international competitors, every chance to reduce costs is being seized. Even though it is known that safety pays off in the long run, safety budgets are cut to increase short-term profit. Operational safety always starts with the people doing the job. Therefore, a brief glance at the crewing practice of present-day seafaring will support the assessment of the overall situation. Generally, there are three different methods of manning commercial vessels. - Ambitious manning, which means a sufficient number of well-trained people will handle the vessel. To ensure proper communication between owner and ship’s personnel the nationality of the crew is frequently the same as that of the shore-based management. - Pilot crews consist of the absolute minimum number of sufficiently trained people to take a vessel from one port to another. However, from case to case there might be additional ancillary staff when the workload becomes too high. - “Budget crews” are crews not selected by the company’s personnel department, but contracted via international crewing agencies, mostly coming from developing countries and having a low income level. There is no common understanding of operation between the owner and the crew. There is hardly even the minimum flow of information needed to ensure that the owner’s ideas will be conveyed to the ship. The standards of vessel operation will depend on the quality and commitment of the crew, the ability and confidence of the master and the support of the company. Rules and regulations do not play a major role, because these will have no important effect as long as the persons do not have the will and the potential to comply. As long as many company managements together with the vessels’ crews do not fulfill minimum professional requi-
J. Froese/Safety
Science I9 (1995) 279-285
283
rements, the best ideas for improving the safety of shipping will be in vain. Prudent operation is the essential basis of all additional safety measures. From the safety point of view, there is no way of compensating for lack of good practice. Spectacular ship accidents have recently caused some public concern. Ship operators, afraid of being held liable for damage caused by pollution by oil or liquid chemicals, have started to work on the situation. The ICS/ISF Code of Good Management Practice in Safe Ship Operation is an attempt to reduce operational malpractices. However, operators are often blamed for just looking for a fig-leaf to conceal deficiencies rather than searching for remedies.
6. Marine transport statistics and investigation
of accidents
Do we really have all data available to sufficiently understand the nature and flow of goods, the motivation and desires of passengers or the distribution and conditions of casualties? No doubt there is a huge amount of data available describing various areas of marine transport, but does this provide an integral picture? It seems that there are some big gaps in the traffic pattern recorded by statistical efforts. Even what is available is difficult to obtain, because of lack of standardized access to directories and data. Are we sure that, after an accident, really everything is done to prevent the future occurrence of a similar case? There are certainly considerable differences in the casualty investigation carried out by national bodies, but it seems common to all of them that they lack the appropriate resources for performing the required investigations. The white-bearded captain with a seat on the board of inquiry will contribute his valuable experience, but he may not compensate for lack of information required from natural or human sciences, engineering or shore-based management.
7. A European marine transport safety concept In spite of the fact that the quality of ship operation is becoming worse rather than better, it is too early just to give up the struggle. The abolition of European borders by the end of the year provides a unique chance to do something special. Some activities have already been started to harmonize national legislation, but more by working out amendments than by finding a reasonable lowest common denominator. That bottom-up approach, beginning from details, should immediately be supplemented by a professional top-down concept, describing global objectives first. But who should do that work? Existing national safety bodies will certainly need some supranational organization to take the lead. That organization should not just add further administrative people, but should use available resources in a competent and effective way. So why not establish a European Marine Transport Safety Board which would act under the umbrella of a European Transport Safety Board ensuring integrity of rules, methods and tools in an intermodal traffic world. The existing bodies dealing with marine safety would send their representatives to the marine transport safety board, where they would work out the guidelines for all other activities. If we think along these lineswe might soon arrive at the idea of a European Coast Guard as the appropriate
284
J. Froese /Safety Science 19 (I 995) 27%285
body for the monitoring of performance and the execution of required measures. But that discussion will not be part of this paper. Only some advantages of a European Marine Transport Safety Board are mentioned here. Defining a European standard of marine safety would be an initial major task. Part of such a standard should be a catalogue of clearly specified objectives and methods respectively procedures and tools for achieving them. As far as possible, road, rail, air and sea traffic should conform to the same basic standards. Besides common cost-benefit considerations, national budgetary situations must be taken into account. Safety of transport should not be dependent on current national fiscal conditions. Therefore some compensation by the European Commission will probably be required for certain countries. Harmonization of safety efforts must go beyond European borders. Worldwide standards are aimed at in the end. From such a European marine transport safety standard, necessary rules and regulations can be derived. There must be a reduction and simplification of laws. Procedural and technical details should become part of safety notes always kept up to date by the relevant departments. The time from recognizing a need for changes to amendments to or cancellations of rules must be kept as short as possible. Detailed rules may not go through the full legal procedure. But even then we will end up with a large number of rules and regulations, in many cases being supplemented by recommendations for performance. Therefore, it is now time for advanced information technology to be applied for the development of a decision support system allowing for fast and reliable retrieval of the required information. For the development of such a system, considerable efforts have to be made but if the same system serves within the whole European Community these efforts will certainly pay off. The range of accepted manning and performance which results in operational practices must be specified Europewide. Quality assurance methods will certainly play an important role, but it has to be ensured that operators and institutions awarding the relevant certifications will establish and maintain the required standards. National administrations must use the instrument of port state control in the same uncompromising way. The frequency and level of safety surveys aboard vessels must not become the subject of competition between ports. The European Marine Transport Safety Board must comprise a department of shipping statistics, reliably recording data and making these available. The purpose of such data will not be restricted to safety aspects only; on the contrary, shipping economy and logistics will be served simultaneously. To fulfill requirements of casualty investigation in a really competent way, current procedures must be completely replaced by a European Marine Casualty Investigation Department being part of the Safety Board, too. This department must have the power to obtain immediate access to all relevant information, even with the assistance of the police if necessary. An adequate budget must be provided to be able to engage experts whenever needed, and a procedure must be established to transform knowledge derived from investigations into necessary precautionary measures. Where cooperation with universities and other scientific and professional institutions and individuals is concerned, the Casualty Investigation Department must be allowed to go beyond mere accident investigation and analyse the whole traffic system or modules of it to continuously enhance marine safety. But even where enhancement does not appear possible, research could lead to lower costs
J. Froese /Safety Science 19 (1995) 279-285
for safety. Economy hand.
and safety are not necessarily
contradictory,
285
but may well go hand in
8. Conclusion Reaction to the Maastricht Treaty recently experienced within some European countries clearly snow that people wish to maintain their national identities and practices. The establishment of a European Marine Transport Safety Board as a powerful centralized European institution can be achieved without such conflicts. What is locally available should be preserved wherever possible and, if necessary, even be reinforced. But at the top there should be a qualified standardizing and guiding body allowing the whole system to result in high level European marine safety, thus providing the framework for a healthy shipping economy.
Sea transport safety - A challenge to European maritime society Jens Froese Fachhochschule Hamburg, Institute of Ship Operation, Maritime Transport und Simulation (ISSUS), Hamburg, Germany
Abstract Safety matters are boring, bothersome orjust a cost factor. These are some of the arguments whjch prevent safety issues from being treated in the same way as, for example, transport logistics, i.e., rationally aiming at optimum results. National legal evolutions, resulting in distinct rules and regulations, are another handicap for a European approach to common marine safety standards. Political changes within the European Community offer a chance to create a marine safety system which complies with developments in shipping, operational practices, and requirements resulting from casualty investigations and statistics. The establishment of a European Marine Transport Safety Board under the umbrella of a European Transport Safety Board is proposed to mutually benefit from road, rail, air and sea transport knowledge.
1. Foreword If the number of rules and regulations dealing with marine safety were an indicator for the level of safety obtained, there would be nothing to worry about. And since their number is still increasing, future prospects should be bright. Unfortunately that is not the case. But then how does one deal with the challenge of protecting human beings, the environment, company investments and marine economical interests such as fishing and tourist beaches if not by creating more and tougher rules? We have got a unique chance. The abolition of the borders within the European Community by the end of this year requires common rules, regulations and procedures. Of course there is some danger that too many cooks will spoil the broth by everybody adding his preferred spice, i.e., rule, on top of what is already there. We might even need a small “revolt” by those subjected to existing regulations to enforce new and improved approaches for enhancements. 0925-7535/95/$09.50
0 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDIO925-7535(94)00030-l
280
J. FroeselSafety
Science 19 (1995)
279-285
2. Marine safety
“Safety matters are boring, bothersome or just a cost factor” is an often-heard opinion. So even if it is for their own sake, it is difficult to convince people to perform safely or to pay for safety. Unsafe practices do not necessarily result in accidents. Thus, it is not easy to prove benefits. The line of argument should therefore follow a more abstract approach by treating casualties as “undesired events” similar to, for example, technical disturbances of a production system. For this purpose a number of analytical methods are available which might convince people more than just logical reasoning. It is probably because motivation to avoid technical defects is generally better than that to avoid injuries. There is nothing cynical about that: it is just because many people mentally suppress picturing possible events they ale really afraid of whereas improved safety requires a very conscious realization of what could happen. Since the term “marine safety” is somewhat vague and might not always be used in exactly the same way, a definition is required. Within this paper, marine safety means “a condition which is obtained by applying all reasonable measures minimizing potential dangers to men, objects and environment caused by operating vessels”. Safety measures can comprise active measures such as - technical measures and provisions when manufacturing or operating a system, - organizational measures within a working process, @#.&havioural measures to influence attitudes, or passive measures aimed at protection if threatening conditions cannot be avoided by active measures. Often, risk is used to measure safety. Normally risk is determined by a figure resulting from multiplying average cost of casualty by probability of occurrence. Thus a real disaster which is unlikely to happen (but not impossible) might lead to a risk similar to that of a minor casualty with a high probability. Therefore it should be discussed whether the term accepted risk is appropriate for deciding what society might have to tolerate and what not. Assessment of potential danger describing the severity of a casualty elucidates much better what could happen.
3. Rules and regulations Most practitioners believe that rules and regulations are only made to prevent harm whereas lawyers require that rules and regulations follow clear and unambiguous principles for deciding after an incident who is to blame and, even more important within business life, which party is to be held liable for damage. With regard to the preventive character of rules and regulations, the requirements are - to reflect real situations, - to be easy to read and to interpret, - to be at hand when needed. Within democratically organized societies, legal regulations take quite a long time from first recognizing that there is a need for change or amendment to finally coming into force. It must therefore be accepted that this process cannot keep pace with continuously accel-
.I. Froese/SafetyScience19(1995)279-285
281
erating technical changes. Technical rules which can be adapted faster to ongoing developments must fill that gap. This, however, is only possible to a very limited extent. Agreed standards worked out by privately organized bodies cover a large area of detail, but these too lag behind technical development. The state of the art, describing in detail how a technical system should be constructed and how it should work and be operated, is not laid down comprehensively. Certainly there are professionals and scientific people with the potential of putting the jigsaw together which will finally present required knowledge and skills. However, it is not done on a regular basis. Manufacturers’ manuals, experts’ opinions, university papers and results from court cases where specialists were consulted must be collected, requiring a lot of effort. Thus, it must be accepted that rules and regulations can only provide the shell for safe systems and operation. Up-to-date knowledge and skills in great detail must be derived from other sources. Within democratic societies, where the actions of politicians are strongly governed by the desire to be re-elected, creation of new rules and regulations provides a convenient way of demonstrating political efforts to the public. Especially after an accident, when the press calls for action to avoid similar casualties in the future, a working group is established immediately for development of new regulations to amend rather than to replace current ones. The result is obvious: the number of rules and regulations to be followed by continuously reduced crews, i.e., fewer and fewer people aboard, is much too large to be at hand within an operational environment which very seldom provides enough time to search through the books or ask other experts.
4. Current developments
in sea transport
Increases in individual transport, relatively low cargo transport costs and just-in-time concepts have caused a road traffic situation which in some regions is not far from collapse. At the same time, scientists are warning us that jet flights must be dramatically reduced, because exhaust gas is destroying the earth’s atmosphere. If that recommendation is followed, large numbers of passengers and tons of cargo will add to existing land transport. Now that the Eastern countries have been released from the Iron Curtain, their economic development, which is expected to happen soon (hopefully), will cause additional flows of cargo throughout Europe. Sea transport capacity could probably be increased to allow for the shifting of passengers and cargo from land to sea. That, however, will require new types of vessels, harbour facilities and connections to rail and road. The use of very fast vessels will need advanced shipborne and shore-based control and surveillance systems. Fast intermodal flow of goods must be accompanied by integrated information systems indicating the nature and amount of goods, current location, departure and arrival time, packaging, hazards, ownership and many other items of information needed for deciding on optimum transport, which does not necessarily have to be the fastest one, and to allow for dispatching and clearing procedures which do not cause any delay. Handling of goods when being transferred from one carrier to another must be further minimized to save time and manpower.
282
J. Froese/Safery
Science 19 (1995) 279-285
Authorities and private companies have recently got that message, and activities have been initiated in many areas. Research projects have been launched by the European Commission as well as by national sponsoring administrations in parallel with new designs of ships and handling equipment. It seems, however, that there is a lack of integration of all these efforts. There is no global concept available which provides the framework for healthy competition between various solutions so as to finally end up with an optimum solution. Not only an economic and ecological optimum,but also an optimum of safety of transport. They, in fact, must not differ too much from each other, because the more logically a system is designed the fewer disturbances, i.e., deviations from what is expected, will occur.
5. Operational practices In March 1989, “Seaways”, the Nautical Institute magazine, published an article by Rear-Admiral D.J. Mackenzie, Chairman of The Nautical Institute Ship Operational Standards Working Group, which concludes: “I hope I have been able to demonstrate that the evolution of international commercial shipping has provided a system which is wide open to abuse because there is no easy way to enforce good operating practices”. That was more than three years ago; no improvement has been observed since then. The shipping scene nowadays is characterized by operators just managing capital investment rather than acting as prudent shipowners. The global objective of such management is to maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with that; making a profit is the natural motivation of entrepreneurs. But because shipping must operate against international competitors, every chance to reduce costs is being seized. Even though it is known that safety pays off in the long run, safety budgets are cut to increase short-term profit. Operational safety always starts with the people doing the job. Therefore, a brief glance at the crewing practice of present-day seafaring will support the assessment of the overall situation. Generally, there are three different methods of manning commercial vessels. - Ambitious manning, which means a sufficient number of well-trained people will handle the vessel. To ensure proper communication between owner and ship’s personnel the nationality of the crew is frequently the same as that of the shore-based management. - Pilot crews consist of the absolute minimum number of sufficiently trained people to take a vessel from one port to another. However, from case to case there might be additional ancillary staff when the workload becomes too high. - “Budget crews” are crews not selected by the company’s personnel department, but contracted via international crewing agencies, mostly coming from developing countries and having a low income level. There is no common understanding of operation between the owner and the crew. There is hardly even the minimum flow of information needed to ensure that the owner’s ideas will be conveyed to the ship. The standards of vessel operation will depend on the quality and commitment of the crew, the ability and confidence of the master and the support of the company. Rules and regulations do not play a major role, because these will have no important effect as long as the persons do not have the will and the potential to comply. As long as many company managements together with the vessels’ crews do not fulfill minimum professional requi-
J. Froese/Safety
Science I9 (1995) 279-285
283
rements, the best ideas for improving the safety of shipping will be in vain. Prudent operation is the essential basis of all additional safety measures. From the safety point of view, there is no way of compensating for lack of good practice. Spectacular ship accidents have recently caused some public concern. Ship operators, afraid of being held liable for damage caused by pollution by oil or liquid chemicals, have started to work on the situation. The ICS/ISF Code of Good Management Practice in Safe Ship Operation is an attempt to reduce operational malpractices. However, operators are often blamed for just looking for a fig-leaf to conceal deficiencies rather than searching for remedies.
6. Marine transport statistics and investigation
of accidents
Do we really have all data available to sufficiently understand the nature and flow of goods, the motivation and desires of passengers or the distribution and conditions of casualties? No doubt there is a huge amount of data available describing various areas of marine transport, but does this provide an integral picture? It seems that there are some big gaps in the traffic pattern recorded by statistical efforts. Even what is available is difficult to obtain, because of lack of standardized access to directories and data. Are we sure that, after an accident, really everything is done to prevent the future occurrence of a similar case? There are certainly considerable differences in the casualty investigation carried out by national bodies, but it seems common to all of them that they lack the appropriate resources for performing the required investigations. The white-bearded captain with a seat on the board of inquiry will contribute his valuable experience, but he may not compensate for lack of information required from natural or human sciences, engineering or shore-based management.
7. A European marine transport safety concept In spite of the fact that the quality of ship operation is becoming worse rather than better, it is too early just to give up the struggle. The abolition of European borders by the end of the year provides a unique chance to do something special. Some activities have already been started to harmonize national legislation, but more by working out amendments than by finding a reasonable lowest common denominator. That bottom-up approach, beginning from details, should immediately be supplemented by a professional top-down concept, describing global objectives first. But who should do that work? Existing national safety bodies will certainly need some supranational organization to take the lead. That organization should not just add further administrative people, but should use available resources in a competent and effective way. So why not establish a European Marine Transport Safety Board which would act under the umbrella of a European Transport Safety Board ensuring integrity of rules, methods and tools in an intermodal traffic world. The existing bodies dealing with marine safety would send their representatives to the marine transport safety board, where they would work out the guidelines for all other activities. If we think along these lineswe might soon arrive at the idea of a European Coast Guard as the appropriate
284
J. Froese /Safety Science 19 (I 995) 27%285
body for the monitoring of performance and the execution of required measures. But that discussion will not be part of this paper. Only some advantages of a European Marine Transport Safety Board are mentioned here. Defining a European standard of marine safety would be an initial major task. Part of such a standard should be a catalogue of clearly specified objectives and methods respectively procedures and tools for achieving them. As far as possible, road, rail, air and sea traffic should conform to the same basic standards. Besides common cost-benefit considerations, national budgetary situations must be taken into account. Safety of transport should not be dependent on current national fiscal conditions. Therefore some compensation by the European Commission will probably be required for certain countries. Harmonization of safety efforts must go beyond European borders. Worldwide standards are aimed at in the end. From such a European marine transport safety standard, necessary rules and regulations can be derived. There must be a reduction and simplification of laws. Procedural and technical details should become part of safety notes always kept up to date by the relevant departments. The time from recognizing a need for changes to amendments to or cancellations of rules must be kept as short as possible. Detailed rules may not go through the full legal procedure. But even then we will end up with a large number of rules and regulations, in many cases being supplemented by recommendations for performance. Therefore, it is now time for advanced information technology to be applied for the development of a decision support system allowing for fast and reliable retrieval of the required information. For the development of such a system, considerable efforts have to be made but if the same system serves within the whole European Community these efforts will certainly pay off. The range of accepted manning and performance which results in operational practices must be specified Europewide. Quality assurance methods will certainly play an important role, but it has to be ensured that operators and institutions awarding the relevant certifications will establish and maintain the required standards. National administrations must use the instrument of port state control in the same uncompromising way. The frequency and level of safety surveys aboard vessels must not become the subject of competition between ports. The European Marine Transport Safety Board must comprise a department of shipping statistics, reliably recording data and making these available. The purpose of such data will not be restricted to safety aspects only; on the contrary, shipping economy and logistics will be served simultaneously. To fulfill requirements of casualty investigation in a really competent way, current procedures must be completely replaced by a European Marine Casualty Investigation Department being part of the Safety Board, too. This department must have the power to obtain immediate access to all relevant information, even with the assistance of the police if necessary. An adequate budget must be provided to be able to engage experts whenever needed, and a procedure must be established to transform knowledge derived from investigations into necessary precautionary measures. Where cooperation with universities and other scientific and professional institutions and individuals is concerned, the Casualty Investigation Department must be allowed to go beyond mere accident investigation and analyse the whole traffic system or modules of it to continuously enhance marine safety. But even where enhancement does not appear possible, research could lead to lower costs
J. Froese /Safety Science 19 (1995) 279-285
for safety. Economy hand.
and safety are not necessarily
contradictory,
285
but may well go hand in
8. Conclusion Reaction to the Maastricht Treaty recently experienced within some European countries clearly snow that people wish to maintain their national identities and practices. The establishment of a European Marine Transport Safety Board as a powerful centralized European institution can be achieved without such conflicts. What is locally available should be preserved wherever possible and, if necessary, even be reinforced. But at the top there should be a qualified standardizing and guiding body allowing the whole system to result in high level European marine safety, thus providing the framework for a healthy shipping economy.