Analytical HFACS for investigating human errors in shipping accidents

Despite the innovative trends in marine technology and the implementation of safety-related regulations, shipping accidents are still a leading concern for global maritime interests. Ensuring the consistency of shipping accident investigation reports is recognized as a significant goal in order to clearly identify the root causes of these accidents. Hence, the goal of this paper is to generate an analytical Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS), based on a Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP), in order to identify the role of human errors in shipping accidents. Integration of FAHP improves the HFACS framework by providing an analytical foundation and group decision-making ability in order to ensure quantitative assessment of shipping accidents.     

Cost-effectiveness criteria for marine oil spill preventive measures

Oil tanker accidents resulting in large quantities of oil spills and severe pollution have occurred in the past, leading to major public attention and an international focus on finding solutions for minimising the risks related to such events. This paper proposes a novel approach for evaluating measures for prevention and control of marine oil spills, based on considerations of oil spill risk and cost effectiveness. A cost model that incorporates all costs of a shipping accident has been established and oil tanker spill accidents have been further elaborated as a special case of such accidents. Utilising this model, novel implementation criteria, in terms of the Cost of Averting a Tonne of oil Spilt (CATS), for risk control options aiming at mitigating the environmental risk of accidental oil spills, are proposed. The paper presents a review of previous studies on the costs associated with oil spills from shipping, which is a function of many factors such as location of spill, spill amount, type of oil, etc. However, ships are designed for global trade, transporting different oil qualities. Therefore, globally applicable criteria must average over most of these factors, and the spill amount is the remaining factor that will be used to measure cost effectiveness against. A weighted, global average cleanup cost of USD 16,000/tonne of oil spilt has been calculated, considering the distribution of oil tanker traffic densities. Finally, the criteria are compared with some existing regulations for oil spill prevention, response and compensation (OPA 90).     

基于改进LSTM的航运物流路径轨迹修复研究

目的 提高航运物流路径轨迹信息的挖掘精度和安全效率。方法 对宁波舟山港条帚门水域窄口航道船舶的类型、数量、长度进行统计分析,对货运船AIS物流路径轨迹异常进行识别与修复。考虑船舶实际航行的环境因素,提出一种新的数据纠偏方法。考虑船舶属性与环境因素,以通航宽度和三自由度运动学的转向能力识别异常数据,然后运用Bi-LSTM法对筛选后航运物流路径进行轨迹修复。结果 所提筛选方法不需要轨迹聚类或建立额外的模型进行判别,筛选数据量占总数量的34.26%,修复后的AIS货船物轨迹数据量在原有基础上提升了115.34%。结论 使用文中方法可以有效纠偏和修复异常航运物流路径轨迹数据,为航运物流轨迹数据挖掘提供一定的基础方法。     

Communicating intended routes in ECDIS: Evaluating technological change

Misunderstanding each other's intentions is one of the most common causes of shipping accidents. By sending out a number of waypoints ahead and displaying them on the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) a ship's intentions would be clearly visible for other ships. Displaying ships’ intentions would be a major change compared to navigation today. It could be very beneficial but it could also have unintended consequences. This paper reports on findings from an evaluation looking for unintended consequences of change using system simulation.     

基于AIS数据的航运物流港口调度优化研究

目的 针对宁波舟山港区的复杂航道水域与密集物流交通流,研究更加有效的调度方案,达成调度时间和等待时间最小化,即效率最大化。方法 分析宁波舟山港区航道的航行情况,提出交会处复杂航道水域存在的问题,以调度时间和等待时间最小为目标的多目标函数,建立复杂航道水域船舶调度模型。针对大量的船舶AIS数据,构建基于神经网络的航道水域调度模型,对不同类型、不同大小的船舶建立速度变化和船舶预测模型,实现对船舶调度状态的预测。设计以传统粒子群算法为基础的改良版船舶调度算法。结果 算法对模型求解表明,根据不同船长与间距可判别交通流拥挤程度进而对船舶进行调度。通过模型预测到可能产生拥挤,则应当选择小型船只走条帚门航道,大型船只走虾峙门航道,并且尽量避免产生拥堵。结论 使用该模型与算法可以有效地提升船舶调度效率,为复杂航运物流港口调度优化研究提供了一定理论基础。     

A risk analysis of winter navigation in Finnish sea areas

Winter navigation is a complex but common operation in north-European sea areas. In Finnish waters, the smooth flow of maritime traffic and safety of vessel navigation during the winter period are managed through the Finnish–Swedish winter navigation system (FSWNS). This article focuses on accident risks in winter navigation operations, beginning with a brief outline of the FSWNS. The study analyses a hazard identification model of winter navigation and reviews accident data extracted from four winter periods. These are adopted as a basis for visualizing the risks in winter navigation operations. The results reveal that experts consider ship independent navigation in ice conditions the most complex navigational operation, which is confirmed by accident data analysis showing that the operation constitutes the type of navigation with the highest number of accidents reported. The severity of the accidents during winter navigation is mainly categorized as less serious. Collision is the most typical accident in ice navigation and general cargo the type of vessel most frequently involved in these accidents. Consolidated ice, ice ridges and ice thickness between 15 and 40 cm represent the most common ice conditions in which accidents occur. Thus, the analysis presented in this article establishes the key elements for identifying the operation types which would benefit most from further safety engineering and safety or risk management development.     

Use of CCTV to determine road accident factors in urban areas

This paper sets out to assess whether there is a potential use for images collected through the increasingly ubiquitous use of CCTV cameras in urban areas as a means of increasing understanding of the causes of road traffic accidents. Information on causation and contributory factors is essential as a means of understanding why accidents occurred and how the occurrence of similar events may be prevented in the future. CCTV records of accidents could provide an independent perspective on an accident and have the potential to increase both the quality and quantity of information available to the safety researcher.

This study focuses on an area of central Leeds in the UK and shows that an existing CCTV camera system used for urban traffic management reasons has the potential to record around a quarter of the accidents which occur in the area, based on patterns of past occurrence. Most city centres in the UK will have similar camera systems set-up. By the introduction of additional strategically placed cameras and replacement of existing cameras with ones dedicated to accident recording, this figure could be increased substantially.

The paper also considers how effective cameras and video records will be as a means of identifying contributory factor information once an accident is recorded. The contributory factor classification used by a recently introduced system in Britain is assessed in terms of how visible each of the factors is likely to be on video and their relative frequency of occurrence. It is concluded that CCTV has a high potential to provide corroborative evidence about many of the most commonly occurring factors, and to throw further light on accident causation.     

Safety effects of permanent running lights for bicycles: A controlled experiment

Making the use of daytime running lights mandatory for motor vehicles is generally documented to have had a positive impact upon traffic safety. Improving traffic safety for bicyclists is a focal point in the road traffic safety work in Denmark. In 2004 and 2005 a controlled experiment including 3845 cyclists was carried out in Odense, Denmark in order to examine, if permanent running lights mounted to bicycles would improve traffic safety for cyclists. The permanent running lights were mounted to 1845 bicycles and the accident rate was recorded through 12 months for this treatment group and 2000 other bicyclists, the latter serving as a control group without bicycle running lights. The safety effect of the running lights is analysed by comparing incidence rates – number of bicycle accidents recorded per man-month – for the treatment group and the control group. The incidence rate, including all recorded bicycle accidents with personal injury to the participating cyclist, is 19% lower for cyclists with permanent running lights mounted; indicating that the permanent bicycle running light significantly improves traffic safety for cyclists. The study shows that use of permanent bicycle running lights reduces the occurrence of multiparty accidents involving cyclists significantly. In the study the bicycle accidents were recorded trough self-reporting on the Internet. Possible shortcomings and problems related to this accident recording are discussed and analysed.     

基于IPSO-BP的船舶航迹预测研究

目的 面对复杂的海上交通及密集的物流交通流,及时有效地对船舶航迹进行跟踪预测显得尤为重要,针对传统船舶航迹预测方法精确度低且效率低下的问题,提出一种改进方法。方法 在船舶自动识别系统（AutomaticIdentificationSystem,AIS）数据的基础上,建立改进粒子群算法（IPSO）与BP神经网络相结合的船舶轨迹预测模型,利用船舶历史航行轨迹数据,实现对未来船舶运动的预测。选取宁波舟山港的船舶历史轨迹数据进行实验,并将IPSO-BP模型的实验结果与其他模型进行比较。结果 不同模型航迹预测对比结果表明,IPSO-BP模型的性能较好,其预测精度较高,适用于船舶轨迹预测。结论 使用IPSO-BP模型能够更加精准地预测船舶航迹,在船舶危险预警、船舶异常监测等方面具有重要的指导作用。     

Analysis of the marine traffic safety in the Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland (GOF) is geographically situated between Finland and Estonian waters. The seafloor varies between deep and shallow and a number of underwater rocks exist in the Finnish archipelago area. The marine traffic has been growing fast during the last years in this area, especially due to the rapid increase of the transportation of various cargoes to Russia and the transport of oil from Russia. In this paper the safety of the marine traffic in the GOF area is analysed. First a detail accident statistics during the last 10 years are described and thereafter the risk of ship collisions is studied by theoretical modelling in two locations. Finally the results of the theoretical models are compared with actual accident statistics. The results reveal that grounding is the dominating accident type in these waters and typically about 11 groundings take place annually, of which about one is a tanker grounding. For collision the highest risks are caused by the passenger ship/RoPax ships traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn together with the high traffic intensity eastwards/westward to and from Russian harbours. The theoretical collision models give good results when compared with the accident statistics. AIS data is utilised in the theoretical models to calculate the geometric collision probabilities.     

Prediction of accidents at full green and green arrow traffic lights in Switzerland with the aid of configuration-specific features

In this study it was endeavored to predict full green and green arrow accidents at traffic lights, using configuration-specific features. This was done using the statistical method known as Poisson regression. A total of 45 sets of traffic lights (criteria: in an urban area, with four approach roads) with 178 approach roads were investigated (the data from two approach roads was unable to be used). Configuration-specific features were surveyed on all approach roads (characteristics of traffic lanes, road signs, traffic lights, etc.), traffic monitored and accidents (full green and green arrow) recorded over a period of 5 consecutive years. It was demonstrated that only between 23 and 34% of variance could be explained with the models predicting both types of accidents. In green arrow accidents, the approach road topography was found to be the major contributory factor to an accident: if the approach road slopes downwards, the risk of a green arrow accident is approximately five and a half times greater (relative risk, RR = 5.56) than on a level or upward sloping approach road. With full green accidents, obstructed vision plays the major role: where vision can be obstructed by vehicles turning off, the accident risk is eight times greater (RR = 8.08) than where no comparable obstructed vision is possible. From the study it emerges that technical features of traffic lights are not able to control a driver's actions in such a way as to eradicate error. Other factors, in particular the personal characteristics of the driver (age, sex, etc.) and accident circumstances (lighting, road conditions, etc.), are likely to make an important contribution to explaining how an accident occurs.     

Highway accident severities and the mixed logit model: an exploratory empirical analysis

Many transportation agencies use accident frequencies, and statistical models of accidents frequencies, as a basis for prioritizing highway safety improvements. However, the use of accident severities in safety programming has been often been limited to the locational assessment of accident fatalities, with little or no emphasis being placed on the full severity distribution of accidents (property damage only, possible injury, injury)-which is needed to fully assess the benefits of competing safety-improvement projects. In this paper we demonstrate a modeling approach that can be used to better understand the injury-severity distributions of accidents on highway segments, and the effect that traffic, highway and weather characteristics have on these distributions. The approach we use allows for the possibility that estimated model parameters can vary randomly across roadway segments to account for unobserved effects potentially relating to roadway characteristics, environmental factors, and driver behavior. Using highway-injury data from Washington State, a mixed (random parameters) logit model is estimated. Estimation findings indicate that volume-related variables such as average daily traffic per lane, average daily truck traffic, truck percentage, interchanges per mile and weather effects such as snowfall are best modeled as random-parameters-while roadway characteristics such as the number of horizontal curves, number of grade breaks per mile and pavement friction are best modeled as fixed parameters. Our results show that the mixed logit model has considerable promise as a methodological tool in highway safety programming.     

Can a safety-in-numbers effect and a hazard-in-numbers effect co-exist in the same data?

Safety-in-numbers denotes a non-linear relationship between exposure (traffic volume) and the number of accidents, characterised by declining risk as traffic volume increases. There is safety-in-numbers when the number of accidents increases less than proportional to traffic volume, e.g. a doubling of traffic volume is associated with less than a doubling of the number of accidents. Hazard-in-numbers, a less-used concept, refers to the opposite effect: the number of accidents increases more than in proportion to traffic volume, e.g. is more than doubled when traffic volume is doubled. This paper discusses whether a safety-in-numbers effect and a hazard-in-numbers effect can co-exist in the same data. It is concluded that both effects can exist in a given data set. The paper proposes to make a distinction between partial safety-in-numbers and complete safety-in-numbers. Another issue that has been raised in discussions about the safety-in-numbers effect is whether the effect found in some studies is an artefact created by the way exposure was measured. The paper discusses whether measuring exposure as a rate or a share, e.g. kilometres travelled per inhabitant per year, will generate a safety-in-numbers effect as a statistical artefact. It is concluded that this is the case. The preferred measure of exposure is a count of the number of road users. The count should not be converted to a rate or to the share any group of road user contribute to total traffic volume.     

Road accidents in Slovenia involving a pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist and a car

We analyse the group of road traffic accidents in Slovenia in which a car driver and a pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist are involved. At the beginning some basic data are presented from the available database on traffic accidents. The selected group is then analysed by use of the logistic regression method. Based on the obtained results, some guidelines for transport policy action--aimed at decreasing the number of accidents with severe injury or fatality--are identified.     

Investigation of shipping accident injury severity and mortality

Shipping movements are operated in a complex and high-risk environment. Fatal shipping accidents are the nightmares of seafarers. With ten years’ worldwide ship accident data, this study develops a binary logistic regression model and a zero-truncated binomial regression model to predict the probability of fatal shipping accidents and corresponding mortalities. The model results show that both the probability of fatal accidents and mortalities are greater for collision, fire/explosion, contact, grounding, sinking accidents occurred in adverse weather conditions and darkness conditions. Sinking has the largest effects on the increment of fatal accident probability and mortalities. The results also show that the bigger number of mortalities is associated with shipping accidents occurred far away from the coastal area/harbor/port. In addition, cruise ships are found to have more mortalities than non-cruise ships. The results of this study are beneficial for policy-makers in proposing efficient strategies to prevent fatal shipping accidents.     

针对全盲用户的导航软件信息无障碍设计

目的 研究影响全盲用户使用导航软件的因素,并基于信息无障碍设计,提出具体的设计策略和服务系统架构,为导航软件进一步服务全盲用户提供借鉴。方法 首先,提出信息无障碍设计中信息的等效替代、强固性、易用性及设计的通用性原则。其次,从生理、认知和行为习惯等方面分析全盲用户群特征,并通过实地访谈和观察实验的方法对全盲用户进行调查研究,构建人物角色模型,绘制用户旅程图,从而获知全盲用户使用导航软件的痛点和机会点。结论 研究表明当前导航软件的无障碍服务水平有待提升,存在缺少盲道指引、无障碍物提示、目的地定位不准确等问题,因此,在增加盲道指引,利用听觉感官给予交互反馈,提供实时路况这3个具体功能点的基础上,构建信息无障碍的服务系统架构。     

Efficient Routing Protocol with Localization Based Priority & Congestion Control for UWSN

The nodes in the sensor network have a wide range of uses, particularly on under-sea links that are skilled for detecting, handling as well as management. The underwater wireless sensor networks support collecting pollution data, mine survey, oceanographic information collection, aided navigation, strategic surveillance, and collection of ocean samples using detectors that are submerged in water. Localization, congestion routing, and prioritizing the traffic is the major issue in an underwater sensor network. Our scheme differentiates the different types of traffic and gives every type of traffic its requirements which is considered regarding network resource. Minimization of localization error using the proposed angle-based forwarding scheme is explained in this paper. We choose the shortest path to the destination using the fitness function which is calculated based on fault ratio, dispatching of packets, power, and distance among the nodes. This work contemplates congestion conscious forwarding using hard stage and soft stage schemes which reduce the congestion by monitoring the status of the energy and buffer of the nodes and controlling the traffic. The study with the use of the ns3 simulator demonstrated that a given algorithm accomplishes superior performance for loss of packet, delay of latency, and power utilization than the existing algorithms.     

Suggestions for an improved system for statistical data about road accidents and road traffic

Data information systems for road accidents and road traffic must satisfy high standards of relevance and quality. The general outline of an improved system for collecting road accident data is given. The system is characterized by the use of statistical sampling methods. The police, the insurance companies and the hospitals are recommended as sources of information about the total accident population. A statistical sample of all identified accidents is then investigated in more detail by special local investigation groups. A hypothetical numerical example is given to show how the suggested system would work in practise. Road accident data should not be isolated from road traffic data. An improved system for collecting information on road traffic is also discussed. This consists of a basic system (founded on statistical sampling methods) for estimation of the total volume of traffic and a few other essential variables such as the volume divided into speed and vehicle types.     

GPS民间应用的一个最大市场——汽车导航系统

汽车导航系统是解决城市交通拥堵的一种高科技手段,是21世纪智能交通（ITS）的发展方向。我们应跳出“要致富先修路”的单纯想法,用科学的方法减少占用可耕地,促进汽车工业的发展。章着重介绍了汽车导航系统的结构与工作原理,提出了三重精度的工程方案,其市场前景广阔。     

Spatio-temporal analysis of road traffic accidents in Oyo State, Nigeria

Studies on road traffic accidents in developing nations have been very scanty. In Nigeria in particular not much is known about accident phenomena. This paper is an account of a scientific investigation into the spatial and temporal characteristics of road traffic accidents in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study is based, principally, on the Nigerian Police Official documented road traffic accident statistics from January 1980 to December 1984. The study examined general features of road traffic accident occurrence in the state and undertook a critical analysis of both temporal and spatial dimensions of the problem. The study identified six traffic zones that could be designated as accident Black Spots in the state, to which priority attention should be given in any road safety programme. Moreover, the study attempted to explain some of the complex factors that might account for the observed spatial and temporal variation in road accidents frequency and fatality. Significantly, the study observed a consistently high number of road accidents during the months of March, September, and December, while fluctuatingly high and low accident figures are recorded for other months of the year. Some possible reasons for this temporal trend in accident occurrence is discussed.