University of Strathclyde

Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering

Enhancing Navigational Safety Through Increasing

Situational Awareness and Teamwork in the Bridge

By

Mohammad Emad Gommosani

A thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

Philosophy

Glasgow, UK

2021
This thesis has resulted from the author’s own efforts. It has been created for the purposes of

the PhD award and not been submitted for any previous examination, nor been awarded for

any other degree.

Copyrights belong to the author and the writer of this thesis under the terms and the

conditions of the United Kingdom.

Signature: ………………………

Name: Mohammad Gommosani

Date:
Acknowledgement

All praise to Almighty Allah for providing me with blessing, strength, patience and good

health to complete this thesis successfully.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my first supervisor

Professor Osman Turan for his support, patient, inspiration, and guidance throughout this

unforgivable journey of the PhD with his patience, care, and knowledge to walk through this

challenge which made it possible to finish this research. Also, I would like to thank my

second supervisor Dr R. Emek Kurt for his help and support during my PhD.

My genuine thanks go to my sweet Mother Majedah Yousef, and my Father Emad

Gommosani for their continuous support, prayers, and encouragement to finish this work and

get back home. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to my Brother and Sisters, Dr.

Raneem, Rami, Dr. Reem and Rahaf, for their endless support, encouragement, prayers, and

love during my research. Besides, I would like to thank nephews, nieces, for my whole

extended family and family-in-law for their support and encouragement during my stay-time

in Saudi Arabia.

“Behind every successful man, there is a great woman”; no words will ever express the

gratitude I owe to my other half, my partner, my wife, Dr. Aliaa Ghoneim. Thank you for

your tremendous support, patience, prayers, help, encouragement and for standing by my

side during this journey. I am so grateful for everything that you have done for me, for

supporting me to pass all the challenges and make this happen besides your other duties

(work and our family). To our little princesses, Mira and Naya, thank you for being in my

life, you bring happiness and joy to the house. You have been my extreme motivation to

finish this research.

I
I would like to acknowledge my colleagues during my PhD journey in Glasgow: Alaa

Khawaja, Bassam Aljahdali, Hadi Bantan, Hesham Abdushkour and all NAOME staff and

researchers for, their support during my PhD path. There is no word to thank my buddy, pal

and friend Dr. Saleh Ghonaim for his support, motivation, help and pushing me forward to

finish this work, thank you, my buddy.

Also, I would like to thank my mates Capt. Mohammad Hittah and Capt. Saleh Sindi for

their support, help, prayers, and advice during the PhD path.

In the end, a special thanks to King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Maritime Studies, and

the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for funding my PhD and supported me to

accomplish this work. Also, I would like to thank the dean, assistance professors, staff, and

students of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for their help,

contribution, and allowing me to use the faculties for my experiments.

II
Table of Contents

Acknowledgement...................................................................................... I

Table of Contents .................................................................................... III

List of Figures ......................................................................................... IX

List of Tables......................................................................................... XII

Table of abbreviations ........................................................................... XV

Abstract ...............................................................................................XVII

1. Introduction ......................................................................................... 1

1.1. Chapter Overview ................................................................................................... 1

1.2. General Perspective ................................................................................................ 1

1.3. Structure of this Thesis ........................................................................................... 6

2. Research Aim and objectives.............................................................. 8

2.1. Chapter Overview ................................................................................................... 8

2.2. Problem identification ............................................................................................ 8

2.3. Motivation .............................................................................................................. 8

2.4. Gaps ........................................................................................................................ 9

2.5. Aims and Objectives............................................................................................... 9

2.6. Chapter Summary ................................................................................................. 10

3. Chapter Overview ............................................................................. 11

III
3.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 11

3.2. Maritime Accidents Overview.............................................................................. 11

3.4. Human and organisational factors ........................................................................ 13

3.4.1. Integrated bridge and installation of a new system (Bridge Automation)........ 13

3.4.2. Lookout ............................................................................................................ 14

3.4.3. Negligence of the rules..................................................................................... 14

3.5. Bridge Resource Management.............................................................................. 15

3.5.1. History of Bridge Resource Management ........................................................ 15

3.5.2. Bridge Team Members ..................................................................................... 17

3.5.3. Communication ................................................................................................ 19

3.5.4. Teamwork ........................................................................................................ 20

3.5.5. The Differences between BRM and Crew Resource Management (CRM) for

Aviation.......................................................................................................................... 21

3.6. Situational Awareness .......................................................................................... 22

3.6.1. Background ...................................................................................................... 22

3.6.2. Definition of Situational Awareness ................................................................ 22

3.6.3. Individual models for situational awareness .................................................... 23

3.6.4. Team situational awareness .............................................................................. 31

3.6.5. Shared situational awareness ............................................................................ 33

3.6.6. Development of team and shared situation awareness ..................................... 34

3.7. Maritime Simulator Experiments ......................................................................... 37

3.8. Summary............................................................................................................... 42

IV
4. Methodology ..................................................................................... 43

4.1. Chapter Overview ................................................................................................. 43

4.2. Improving Navigational Safety by Enhancing the Performance of Crew ............ 43

4.2.1. Review of the Maritime Accidents................................................................... 46

4.2.2. Questionnaire to Assess Situation Awareness Issues for Crew Members ....... 46

4.2.3. Attending BRM courses ................................................................................... 48

4.2.4. Improvement Methodologies and Action Plans ............................................... 48

4.3. Chapter Summary ................................................................................................. 49

5. Maritime Accident Database Review ............................................... 50

5.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 50

5.2. Methodology......................................................................................................... 50

5.3. Findings ................................................................................................................ 52

5.3.1. Overall .............................................................................................................. 52

5.3.2. Missing SA factors ........................................................................................... 55

5.3.2.1. External Communication ............................................................................. 55

5.3.2.2. Wrong/miss use of the available information. ............................................. 56

5.3.2.3. The information is not there. ........................................................................ 57

5.3.2.4. Poor bridge team act (BTA) ......................................................................... 58

5.3.2.5. Lookout ........................................................................................................ 59

5.3.2.6. Wrong decision-making ............................................................................... 60

5.3.2.7. Not following the regulations ...................................................................... 61

5.3.2.8. Poor navigation (Practice/training) .............................................................. 62

V
 5.3.2.9. Manning/Other ............................................................................................. 63

5.3.3. Period before 2012 MAIB ................................................................................ 65

5.3.4. Period after 2012 MAIB................................................................................... 67

5.3.5. Period before 2012 ATSB ................................................................................ 69

5.3.6. Period after 2012 ATSB ................................................................................... 71

5.3.7. Period before 2012 TSBC ................................................................................ 73

5.3.8. Period after 2012 TSBC ................................................................................... 75

5.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 77

6. Situation Awareness of Crew Members: Results of the questionnaire-

based study among seafarers ................................................................... 78

6.1. Chapter Overview ................................................................................................. 78

6.2. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 78

6.3. Situational awareness for crew member questionnaire development ................... 78

6.4. Situational awareness assessment questionnaire data collection .......................... 79

6.4.1. Demographic .................................................................................................... 79

6.4.2. Factor analysis .................................................................................................. 85

6.4.3. Results for Situational Awareness domain....................................................... 92

6.4.4. Statistical Results ........................................................................................... 104

6.5. Chapter summary................................................................................................ 119

7. Bridge Resource Management (BRM) Course: Development of a

New Course for the Bridge Team ......................................................... 120

7.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 120

VI
 7.2. Bridge Resource Management (BRM) courses .................................................. 120

7.3. Comparison between BRM courses ................................................................... 129

7.4. Proposal for a New Bridge Resource Management Course for All Seafarers

(BRMs) 131

7.4.1. BRMs Preparation .......................................................................................... 131

7.5. Summary............................................................................................................. 135

8. Comparative Assessment of New BRMs Courses with the Normal

Method by Performing Experiments in the Simulator .......................... 137

8.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 137

8.2. Participants ......................................................................................................... 137

8.3. The Navigation Bridge Simulator....................................................................... 139

8.4. BRMs Lectures ................................................................................................... 141

8.5. Simulator Training Scenarios ............................................................................. 142

8.6. Summary............................................................................................................. 156

9. Discussion ....................................................................................... 158

9.1. Chapter Overview ............................................................................................... 158

9.2. Achievement of Research Aim and Objectives .................................................. 158

9.3. Novelty ............................................................................................................... 160

9.4. Limitations.......................................................................................................... 162

9.5. Future Work........................................................................................................ 163

9.6. Chapter Summary ............................................................................................... 163

10. Conclusion .................................................................................. 164

VII
Reference:.............................................................................................. 167

Appendices ............................................................................................ 182

Appendix A- Situational Awareness Survey for Crew Members .................................... 182

Appendix B- BRM Course Form ..................................................................................... 197

Appendix C- IMO outline for BRM course ..................................................................... 198

VIII
List of Figures
FIGURE 1.1 WORLD SEABORNE TRANSPORTATION (UNCTAD, 2017) .................................................................. 2

FIGURE 1.2 ACCIDENTS OCCURRED DUE TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS RECODED BY USCG ADOPTED BY (BAKER

AND MCCAFFERTY, 2005) ................................................................................................................... 4

FIGURE 1.3 THE FACTORS OF MARITIME ACCIDENTS REPORTED BY MAIB ADOPTED BY (BAKER AND MCCAFFERTY, 2005)

....................................................................................................................................................... 5

FIGURE 3.1 MARITIME ACCIDENTS CAUSATIONS (EMSA, 2020)........................................................................ 12

FIGURE 3.2 HIERARCHY OF BRIDGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT .......................................................................... 16

FIGURE 3.3 THE THREE-LEVEL MODEL OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS (ENDSLEY, 1995B). ......................................... 24

FIGURE 3.4 ACTIVE THEORY APPROACH TO SITUATIONAL AWARENESS (FROM BEDNY AND MEISTER, 1999). .............. 27

FIGURE 3.5 THE PERCEPTUAL CYCLE MODEL (SMITH AND HANCOCK, 1995)(SALMON, 2008). ................................ 29

FIGURE 4.1 THE PROPOSED NAVIGATIONAL SAFETY FOR CREW MEMBER ASSESSMENT AND IMPROVEMENT

METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................... 44

FIGURE 5.1 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN MARINE ACCIDENTS ............................. 53

FIGURE 5.2 OVERALL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO A LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 2012 ............................ 54

FIGURE 5.3 OVERALL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO A LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 2012. ............................. 54

FIGURE 5.4 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY POOR COMMUNICATION ONBOARD OF EACH SHIP BEFORE AND

AFTER 01/01/2012. ........................................................................................................................ 56

FIGURE 5.5 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY POOR OR WRONG/MISS USE OF THE AVAILABLE INFORMATION

ONBOARD SHIPS BEFORE AND AFTER 01/01/2012 ................................................................................. 57

FIGURE 5.6 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY THE MISSING INFORMATION ONBOARD SHIPS BEFORE AND AFTER

01/01/2012. ................................................................................................................................. 58

FIGURE 5.7 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY POOR BTA ONBOARD SHIPS BEFORE AND AFTER 01/01/2012. .. 59

FIGURE 5.8 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY POOR OF LOOKOUT ONBOARD SHIPS BEFORE AND AFTER 01/01/2012.60

IX
FIGURE 5.9 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY POOR OF WRONG DECISION MAKING IN EACH BOARD BEFORE AND

AFTER 01/01/2012. ........................................................................................................................ 61

FIGURE 5.10 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY NOT FOLLOWING THE CONVENTIONS ONBOARD SHIPS BEFORE AND AFTER

01/01/2012. ...................................................................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.

FIGURE 5.11 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS THAT CAUSED BY POOR NAVIGATION BEFORE AND AFTER 01/01/2012. ........... 63

FIGURE 5.12 NUMBER OF ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY POOR OF MANNING AND OTHER EXTERNAL FACTORS ONBOARD EACH

VESSEL BEFORE AND AFTER 01/01/2012. ............................................................................................. 64

FIGURE 5.13 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN MAIB MARINE ACCIDENTS BEFORE

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 65

FIGURE 5.14 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012 ........ 66

FIGURE 5.15 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN MAIB MARINE ACCIDENTS AFTER

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 67

FIGURE 5.16 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ......... 68

FIGURE 5.17 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN ATSB MARINE ACCIDENTS BEFORE

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 69

FIGURE 5.18 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012. ....... 70

FIGURE 5.19 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN ATSB MARINE ACCIDENTS AFTER

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 71

FIGURE 5.20 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ......... 72

FIGURE 5.21 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN TSBC MARINE ACCIDENTS BEFORE

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 73

FIGURE 5.22 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012. ....... 74

FIGURE 5.23 PERCENTAGE OF FAILURE IN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS LEVELS IN TSBC MARINE ACCIDENTS AFTER

01/01/2012 .................................................................................................................................. 75

X
FIGURE 5.24 PERCENTAGE OF FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ......... 76

FIGURE 6.1 AGE RANGE OF ALL PARTICIPANTS................................................................................................. 80

FIGURE 6.2 RANGE OF POSITIONS FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS .................................................................................. 82

FIGURE 6.3 RANGE OF SEA-TIME EXPERIENCE FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS ................................................................... 83

FIGURE 6.4 DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONALITIES ................................................................................................. 84

FIGURE 7.1 THE SIMULATOR ROOM ............................................................................................................ 128

FIGURE 8.1 THE BRIDGE TEAM OF GROUP A ................................................................................................. 139

FIGURE 8.2 THE BRIDGE TEAM OF GROUP B ................................................................................................. 139

FIGURE 8.3 TRANSAS 270° FULL MISSION NAVIGATION BRIDGE SIMULATOR ..................................................... 140

XI
List of Tables

TABLE 3.1 THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL SA MODELS ................................................................... 30

TABLE 4.1 MEAN SCORE INTERPRETATION. .................................................................................................... 47

TABLE 5.1 NUMBER AND TYPE OF MARITIME ACCIDENTS OCCURRED FROM 2007 TO 2017 IN DIFFERENT INVESTIGATION

BRANCHES (ATSB, 2017; MAIB, 2017; TSBC, 2017; CHIRP, 2020) .................................................... 52

TABLE 5.2 OVERALL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO A LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE AND AFTER 2012. ............. 55

TABLE 5.3 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012. ................................. 65

TABLE 5.4 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ................................... 68

TABLE 5.5 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012. ................................. 70

TABLE 5.6 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ................................... 72

TABLE 5.7 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEFORE 01/01/2012. ................................. 74

TABLE 5.8 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO LACK OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AFTER 01/01/2012. ................................... 76

TABLE 6.1 KMO AND BARLETT'S TEST .......................................................................................................... 85

TABLE 6.2 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS FOR THE FIXED NUMBER OF VALUES AND PERCENTAGE OF VARIANCE .......... 86

TABLE 6.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS PATTERN MATRIX FACTOR LOADINGS ................................................... 86

TABLE 6.4 FACTOR LOADINGS ..................................................................................................................... 88

TABLE 6.5 RELIABILITY SCALES ..................................................................................................................... 92

TABLE 6.6 MEAN SCORE INTERPRETATION. .................................................................................................... 93

TABLE 6.7 MEAN LIMIT INTERPRETATION. ...................................................................................................... 93

TABLE 6.8 SAFE BRIDGE ENVIRONMENT AND TEAMWORK DOMAIN ..................................................................... 94

TABLE 6.9 COMMUNICATION DOMAIN ......................................................................................................... 97

TABLE 6.10 BRIDGEWORK DOMAIN.............................................................................................................. 99

XII
TABLE 6.11 BRIDGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DOMAIN................................................................................ 101

TABLE 6.12 SAFETY AWARENESS DOMAIN ................................................................................................... 103

TABLE 6.13 ANOVA ON AGE (SIGNIFICANT INTERACTIONS, P-VALUE < 0.05, ARE SHOWN IN RED)......................... 104

TABLE 6.14 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS OF POST HOC TESTS FOR THE INTERACTION OF AGES. ............................... 105

TABLE 6.15 ANOVA ON RANK (SIGNIFICANT INTERACTIONS, P-VALUE < 0.05, ARE SHOWN IN RED) ....................... 106

TABLE 6.16 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS OF POST HOC TESTS FOR THE INTERACTION OF RANKS. ............................. 107

TABLE 6.17 ANOVA ON EXPERIENCE AT SEA (SIGNIFICANT INTERACTIONS, P-VALUE < 0.05, ARE SHOWN IN RED) .... 112

TABLE 6.18 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS OF POST HOC TESTS FOR THE INTERACTION OF EXPERIENCE AT SEA. ............ 113

TABLE 6.19 ANOVA ON NATIONALITY (SIGNIFICANT INTERACTIONS, P-VALUE < 0.05, ARE SHOWN IN RED)............. 115

TABLE 6.20 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS OF POST HOC TESTS FOR THE INTERACTION OF NATIONALITY. ..................... 115

TABLE 7.1 COMPARISON OF BRM COURSES BETWEEN TWO MARITIME INSTITUTIONS ........................................... 121

TABLE 7.2 ROLE OF THE BRIDGE TEAM MEMBER ............................................................................................ 127

TABLE 7.3 COURSE DESCRIPTION................................................................................................................ 134

TABLE 7.4 BRMS TIMETABLE .................................................................................................................... 135

TABLE 8.1 SCENARIO TIMING .................................................................................................................... 143

TABLE 8.2 MEASUREMENT OF ACTION IS TAKEN AND PERFORMANCE................................................................. 144

TABLE 8.3 KPI FOR EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE FOR EACH RANK ........................................................................ 144

TABLE 8.4 TEAM A MEASUREMENT IN THE FIRST-DAY SCENARIO....................................................................... 146

TABLE 8.5 BRIDGE A PERFORMANCE IN THE FIRST-DAY SCENARIO. .................................................................... 146

TABLE 8.6 TEAM B MEASUREMENT IN THE FIRST-DAY SCENARIO ....................................................................... 147

TABLE 8.7 BRIDGE B PERFORMANCE IN THE FIRST-DAY SCENARIO ..................................................................... 148

TABLE 8.8 BRIDGE A PERFORMANCE IN THE SECOND-DAY SCENARIO. ................................................................ 150

TABLE 8.9 BRIDGE B PERFORMANCE IN THE SECOND-DAY SCENARIO ................................................................. 151

XIII
TABLE 8.10 TEAM A MEASUREMENT IN THE THIRD-DAY SCENARIO.................................................................... 153

TABLE 8.11 BRIDGE A PERFORMANCE IN THE THIRD-DAY SCENARIO. ................................................................. 154

TABLE 8.12 TEAM B MEASUREMENT IN THE THIRD-DAY SCENARIO .................................................................... 155

TABLE 8.13 BRIDGE B PERFORMANCE IN THE THIRD-DAY SCENARIO .................................................................. 155

XIV
Table of abbreviations
Abbreviation Meaning

2nd Off Second Officer

3rd Off Third Officer

AB Able Seaman

AIS Automatic Identification System

ARPA Automatic Radar Plotting Aid

ATSB Australian Transport Safety Bureau

BRM Bridge Recourse Management

B.Sc. Bachelor of Science degree

BTA Bridge Team Act

BTM Bridge Team Management

Capt. Captain

Ch Off Chief Officer

CoC1 Certificate of Competency level 1

CoC2 Certificate of Competency level 2

CoC3 Certificate of Competency level 3

CoE Certificate of Endorsement

COLREG The International Regulation for Prevention Collision at Sea 1972

CPA Closest Point of Approach

EASA European Union Aviation Safety Agency

ECDIS Electronic Charts Display and Information System

ETA Estimated Time of Arrival

FFA Federal Aviation Administration

GPS Global Positioning System

XV
HELM Human Element, Leadership and Management

IMO International Maritime Organization

ISM The International Safety Management Code

KPI Key Performance Indicator

MAIB Marine Accident Investigation Branch

NM Nautical Mile

OOW Officer of the Watch

OS Ordinary Seaman

ROR Rules of the Road

SOLAS The International Convention of the Safety of Life at Sea 1974

STCW International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification

and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1978

TCPA Time of Closest Point of Approach

TSBC The Transportation Safety Board of Canada

VHF Very High Frequency

VTS Vessel Traffic Services

XVI
Abstract
It is well reported in the literature that more than 80% of shipping accidents are attributed to

human and organisational factors. Marine accidents are the result of error chains rather than

single events. Prevention of accidents has gained the deserved attention by the end of the last

century, as the maritime community has realised that despite all the increased safety

standards and technological developments, accidents are still occurring, and the system is not

resilient to errors at various levels. Furthermore, it has been often ignored that the human

element of the maritime system has not been evolving the in the same way that technology is

developing; and with the physical capabilities and the limitations of the human is being

overlooked. It is considering that 60% of the accident are classed as grounding and

collisions, which need to improve navigational safety.

This research aims to minimise the human and organisational factors in the bridge by

enhancing the bridge team interaction and increasing the situational awareness of the bridge

team in total. This will increase the bridge team performance to communicate and optimise

teamwork between bridge team member to avoid accidents. Moreover, this thesis looks into

Bridge Resource Management (BRM) elements and its deficiency and develop a new course

that is flexible for all bridge team members to increase their efficiency and improve the

team's decision-making based on the interpretation of the situation. The novelty of this

research is to develop a BRM course to cover all bridge team members to enhance the bridge

team performance to be similar to the aviation industry, which requires all aviation pilot and

cabin crew to participant in Crew Resource Management (CRM) to be eligible for working

in the aeroplanes.

The validation of the new course's effectiveness has been utilised in the full-mission ship's

bridge navigational simulator compared to the regular course. Educational scenarios based

on real accidents has been established for the validation experiment to evaluate the bridge

team participants' performance and actions to avoid the collision.

XVII
 1. Introduction

1.1. Chapter Overview

This chapter defines the general outcome of the themes covered in this thesis and outlines the

structure of this thesis.

1.2. General Perspective

Most of the global economy relies on the maritime transportation system, as more than 1.5

billion tonnes of cargo exceeding 90% of the world trade are being transported every year by

the sea. It is considered the best economical way to transport great amounts of cargo

worldwide (IMO, 2020). The world seaborne trade had demonstrated substantial growth

since 1983, except when the world economy collapsed in 2009. The growth of maritime

transportation has been increasing side-by-side with world trade, as shown in Figure 1.1

below (UNCTAD, 2017).

Accordingly, to transport this tremendous amount of cargo, around 53000 cargo ships have

been utilised, with more than 1.6 million seafarers deployed to ensure the safety of

navigation and safety of the cargo (ICS, 2020; IMO, 2020). Also, maritime transportation is

an international business; it requires a multinational and multicultural workforce to transport

the cargo and operate the ships, which makes up approximately 70–80% of the multinational

seafarers globally (Lu, Hsu and Lee, 2016).

1
Figure 1.1 World seaborne transportation (UNCTAD, 2017)

Due to the high number of maritime accidents over the last century, the International

Maritime Organization (IMO) established many conventions that aim to protect human life,

ensure the safety of the environment and safety of the goods. In 1914 the first international

convention was the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).

Afterwards, with the increasing number of maritime accidents over the years, IMO needed to

improve the bridge team performance and education. So, the IMO established the

International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for

Seafarers (STCW) in 1978 to increase shipping safety through increasing the education and

training for the seafarers. Subsequently, in 2010 the STCW was amended to enhance marine

environment awareness training, leadership and teamwork training by developing a Bridge

Resource Management course (BRM) in 2012. The aim was to decrease the accidents caused

by the human element (IMO, 2017). Therefore, the main aim is to enhance navigational

2
safety by ensuring that the ship’s bridge crew is using all the resources such as human,

procedures, and technology that are available onboard the vessel effectively.

The maritime education sector regularly attempts to enhance the training objectives that are

related to human factors, along with operating the bridge equipment in a way to achieve the

safety of navigation (Hontvedt, 2015). The maritime sector believes that ships’ navigational

systems have become progressively complex due to technological development, which

affects the experience and knowledge of the bridge team, especially when large ships are

navigated. Moreover, the lack of training on the new equipment and poor application of

BRM practice can adversely affect maritime safety instead of improving it. The advantage of

the new equipment and automation is to decrease the physical activity of the bridge team by

eliminating the movement between the bridge’s equipment. However, it increases the mental

load on the operator. An over-relying on such equipment can cause misinterpretation of

some technical information, leading to poor decision-making and, hence, a potential accident

(Badokhon, 2018a).

Based on many accident databases, the human element was a major factor influencing ship

accidents, with more than 80% of the underlying reasons are identified as situation

awareness and assessment (SA) and teamwork. The SA term describes the level of the

people’s awareness in a specific situation that requires being focused on, developed, and

keeping an adequate understanding of what is happening to fulfil their task performance. The

miss-assessment of the situation, lack of knowledge of the navigational equipment

capabilities, and its misuse increase the risk of accidents along with poor lookout, poor

decision-making, and not following the maritime regulations. In addition, poor application of

bridge resource/team management (BRM/BTM) increased this risk to a higher level.

3
For the period between 1991 and 2001, USCG recorded over 71000 accidents and incidents,

where the majority of the ship accidents were caused by human and organisational factors,

and over 70% were due to the SA, as presented in Figure 1.2 below.

Accidents occurred due to lake of situational awareness

1%

8%

19%

72%

Situation Assessment and Awareness Navigation Control Execution Other

Figure 1.2 Accidents occurred due to lack of situational awareness recoded by USCG adopted by (Baker and
McCafferty, 2005)

Moreover, 150 accident reports from the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB)

show that around 25% of these accidents were caused due to a lack of situation assessment

and awareness, poor bridge resource management, and communications failure (Baker and

McCafferty, 2005). In addition, 100 accident reports from the United Kingdom Marine

Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) grouped the causes of the accidents into five

categories: non-human error group, e.g. weather, material failure; maintenance group; Risk

group, e.g. risk tolerance, navigation vigilance, task omission etc.; situation awareness

group; and management group. Figure 1.3 below showed that situation awareness and

management groups caused approximately 50% of accidents which included many factors

such as situation assessment and awareness, knowledge, skills, communications, and bridge

resource management.

4
 The factors of maritime accidents reported by MAIB

18% 1%
25%

23% 33%

Non Human Error Group Maintenance Group Risk Group

Management Group Situation Awareness Group

Figure 1.3 The factors of maritime accidents reported by MAIB adopted by (Baker and McCafferty, 2005)

From 2011 to 2018, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has recorded more than

23000 ship incidents or accidents which the human and organisational factors represented

58% of these accidents. Additionally, around 8700 maritime accidents occurred due to the

lack of navigational safety (EMSA, 2018).

The motivation to conduct this research is the lack of transmission of navigational

information and situational awareness among the crew members without hesitation or fearing

from the consequences that the information is wrong. Additionally, the availability of a huge

amount of information resources available in the bridge will have a significant positive

impact on the bridge team's performance and navigational safety, provided this information

is used and shared effectively. This will enhance the bridge team’s situational awareness and

their decision-making to use it in normal or critical situations. Moreover, this will remove

the over-relying on bridge equipment and start making the best use of it and sharing the

information to avoid collision situation. Finally, reviewing other industries’ such as the

aviation sector, for enhancing the bridge team interaction that can be implemented for the

ships to enhance the safety of ship navigation.

5
 1.3. Structure of this Thesis

The structure of this thesis is briefed below:

• Chapter 1 outline the background of the development of the IMO conventions that

serve maritime safety and the importance of the shipping industry. Background of

information about situational awareness, Bridge Resource Management (BRM), the

causes of maritime accident and the output of this thesis.

• Chapter 2 the aim and the objectives of this research which will be achieved through

this study. It includes the motivation behind this research.

• Chapter 3 presents the literature and critical review on maritime safety culture,

maritime accidents and the contribution of the human factor to the accidents. Review

BRM literature and its element, situational awareness models and bridge simulation

experiment are also included in this chapter.

• Chapter 4 presents a survey about the crew's situational awareness, which was

collected from seafarers and utilised as a case study. Furthermore, the

implementation methodology of the thesis to conduct this research is also included

in chapter 4.

• Chapter 5 present a review of accident investigations from three different maritime

investigation branches and highlight the root causes of losing situational awareness

of the bridge team.

• Chapter 6 presents the result of the situational awareness derived from the crew

survey (case study), which was analysed under five domains of situational awareness

assessment.

• Chapter 7 presents the differentiation between the bridge resource management

courses offered by different institutions and the proposal for the new BRM course.

6
• Chapter 8 presents a comparative assessment of the existing and proposed BRM

course to validate the new BRM through a full-mission bridge navigational simulator

by performing different navigational scenarios to measure the bridge team

performance.

• Chapter 9 details the research's contribution, its outcome and the benefit of the

developed course to the state-of-art knowledge and how the aim and objectives were

achieved. The gaps in this research and the recommendations for future work are

also presented in chapter 9.

• Chapter 10 summarises the main findings of the thesis. This includes a conclusion of

this research and the contributions that have been achieved through this thesis.

7
 2. Research Aim and objectives

2.1. Chapter Overview

This chapter presents the motivation behind this work, the aim and objectives of this

research.

2.2. Problem identification

Bridge team performance can be affected adversely by many factors, such as fatigue, extra

workload, communication difficulties, inappropriate leadership skills, inattention in duty,

etc., and these factors may lead to a navigational hazard or an accident. As a result of this,

the bridge team’s situational awareness could collapse, which lead to misunderstanding of

the navigational situation. The bridge team’s decisions based on inaccurate information

might lead to maritime accidents. Furthermore, the bridge's information resources, such as

navigational equipment, books, etc., are beyond the human capability to be handled or

memorised. Accordingly, this research focuses on sharing situational awareness and improve

team performance to enhance bridge performance and navigational safety.

2.3. Motivation

The human factors which contributed to maritime accidents showed a significant impact of

the bridge team’s actions (or no actions) on these accidents (Chauvin, 2011a; EMSA, 2018).

Additionally, recent research in maritime technology has invested in ship automation to

decrease human and organisational factors and human interaction with navigational safety

(Abdushkour et al., 2018).

BRM course aimed to enhance the skills of the bridge team by using the best of the resources

available in the bridge to ensure the safety of navigation. However, the course is prepared for

the captains, OOWs and pilots but not for other bridge team members such as lookout,

8
wheelman, and cadets. Moreover, after studying BRM course contents over many maritime

institutions, it was found that there are some differences in the course contents. The aviation

industry provides a similar course which is called Crew Resource Management (CRM), with

no differences in contents between the aviation institutions, for all planes’ crew to enhance

the crew performance in normal and critical situations (Hayward and Lowe, 2010).

2.4. Gaps

• There is no standardisation of BRM course contents between different maritime

institutions.

• There is no course that includes the other bridge team members such as cadets,

lookouts, and wheelman, which will improve the interaction and teamwork between

bridge members.

2.5. Aims and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to enhance navigational safety by increasing situational

awareness and teamwork in the bridge. The detailed objectives of the research are given

below:

• To review the literature on situational awareness and how situational

awareness was achieved among the bridge team members.

• To create a maritime accidents database to identify the key factors that led to

the loss of situational awareness of the bridge team by analysing previous

accident reports.

• To develop a questionnaire for crew members to capture the gaps of their

attitudes and teamwork towards the safe practise of ship bridge activates by

distributing this questionnaire to different shipping companies.

9
 • To attend various BRM courses offered by various maritime institutions to

identify the best practices as well as the gaps and differences between

different courses.

• Based on the database analysis and the feedback from the seafarers, develop

a new Bridge Resource/Team Management (BRM/BTM) Course to enhance

the navigational resilience by enhancing communication, Sharing situational

awareness and knowledge of the surrounding situation among the bridge

team members.

• Validate and test the new course in a full-mission simulator environment by

performing a comparative assessment of the normal bridge working

practices and the new course approach proposed by the author.

2.6. Chapter Summary

The chapter has presented the motivation of this study, aims and objectives of this research.

10
 3. Chapter Overview
A critical review is performed and presented along with the brief theoretical information

required in this study.

3.1. Introduction

Based on many accidents databases, the human element was a major factor influencing ship

accidents, of which the main two components are situational awareness and assessment (SA)

and teamwork. The misunderstanding of the situation, lack of knowledge about the

capabilities of the navigational equipment as well as incorrect use of equipment raise

accident risks. In addition, poor application of bridge resource/team management

(BRM/BTM) increased this risk to a higher level. The human and organisational factors

increase due to misjudgement, poor situational awareness and practising workaround while

neglecting the official rules (Kumar, 2014). This chapter will cover; an overview of maritime

accidents and the role of human and organisational factors in these accidents; a brief review

of BRM historical development, elements and the differences between maritime BRM and

aviation Crew Resource Management (CRM); definitions of SA, models of SA and team SA;

finally, an overview of the role of the maritime simulator in maritime research studies.

3.2. Maritime Accidents Overview

For the purpose of understanding maritime accidents, it is crucial to determine the causes of

maritime accidents and to know the main contributing factors for maritime accidents. These

causes of prevalent maritime accidents types are explained in the pie chart (EMSA, 2020).

Collision, contact and grounding were found to represent 45% of the accidents that occurred

from 2014 to 2019, as presented in Figure 3.1 below. Consequently, reducing collision and

grounding accidents will decrease the overall maritime accidents significantly. Moreover,

EMSA (2020) highlighted that the main factors leading to maritime accidents are human

11
factors (66%), which related to training, skills and operations, and failure to comply with

regulations/legislation (15%). Thus, to lower maritime accidents, it is important to decrease

human and organisational factors and increase the efficiency of bridge team actions to

enhance the navigational safety.

Figure 3.1 Maritime accidents causations (EMSA, 2020)

The global economy is highly dependent on maritime transportation, where about 90% of

global trading is transported by ships (ICS, 2020). It is more economical to transport raw

materials and stocks all over the globe using ships (Hetherington, Flin and Mearns, 2006),

and shipping has demonstrated superior competency in transporting different products cost-

effectively compared to other modes of transport (ICS, 2020).

On the contrary, major maritime accidents can have disastrous effects on the lives, assets and

environment (Chauvin, 2011b). Many marine maritime researchers have shown that 80% of

all accidents are directly or indirectly caused by human and organisational factors (Grech,

Horberry and Smith, 2002; Baker and McCafferty, 2005; Batalden and Sydnes, 2017).

12
Determining the main causes of marine navigational accidents will help develop preventive

measures that will considerably reduce the occurrence and outcomes of such accidents

(Montewka et al., 2017). The following section will discuss the effect of human factors on

maritime accidents.

3.4. Human and organisational factors

In the shipping industry, in general, the crew members are often blamed for accidents and

incidents while they are penalised for every error/incident that is occurred onboard the ship.

However, recent research studies recognised that accidents are created due to the

organisational factors that affect individuals' choices (Chauvin, 2011b).

According to ABS technical report by Baker and McCafferty (2005) and Hetherington, Flin

and Mearns (2006), they stated that more than 80% of maritime accidents occur due to

human and organisational factors, and the majority of these accidents occur because of a lack

of situational awareness and situation assessment.

This part will focus on four categories that could influence human judgement. They are

automation on the bridge, neglecting the rules, lookout, and bridge resource management

elements (communication, teamwork and situational awareness). They are discussed below.

3.4.1. Integrated bridge and installation of a new system (Bridge Automation)

Usually, human take shortcuts to reach their goals, including avoiding some parts of the

rules, which may lead to potential errors in the operational chain (Hadnett, 2008). Hadnett

(2008) mentioned that an integrated bridge could increase an officer’s situational awareness

by gathering all equipment in one system, which allows the officer to concentrate on one

system only (Hadnett, 2008). However, the poor practice of job performance by over-relying

on bridge equipment and forgetting to use human skills such as communicating with bridge

member, thinking of the situation, and not sharing this thinking among the team will lead to

13
gaps (errors) in the human operational chain which are considered as main points in bridge

resource management (BRM) as discussed further below.

Due to misunderstanding and poor application of COLREG rules, Baker and McCafferty

(2005) and Szlapczynski and Szlapczynska (2015a) proposed a new system that provides

information to OOW with regards to the COLREGS and environment. The proposed system

visualises the physical data and all the information about other targets (speed, course, and

action to be taken) in one device to support the operator. They added that more training and

familiarisation would be required when this system is installed.

3.4.2. Lookout

The IMO stated a rule for lookout in the International Regulations for Prevention of

Collisions at Sea, which is rule 5 “Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout

by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing

circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and or the risk of

collision” (IMO, 1972). However, despite the well-defined regulations, many of ship

accidents occur due to the poor lookout, which leads to collisions that are, according to some

MAIB reports, “the collision was a surprise for both vessels” (Baker and McCafferty, 2005;

Hetherington, Flin and Mearns, 2006).

3.4.3. Negligence of the rules

According to Collision Regulations COLREG, all the maritime navigation manoeuvring

should be done to avoid a collision. These rules helped the bridge team maintain ship safety

by advising the OOWs to avoid collision actions to be taken in every situation. However,

accidents still occurred (Demirel and Bayer, 2015). However, COLREG rules subject to the

understanding and interpretation by the OOW, who decides the type of avoidance action and

the suitable time (Szlapczynski and Szlapczynska, 2015b). Many authors mentioned that

14
most of OOWs are not following the rules because they think that other ship’s officer has

more information and knowledge than them. Another suggestion is that some officers are not

following the rules because the rules are not clear for them (Baker and McCafferty, 2005;

Hetherington, Flin and Mearns, 2006). Furthermore, the rules' ambiguity when more than

two ships are involved in the risk of collision, where there are no clear instructions on which

rule(s) to follow to avoid a collision. Besides, in some cases where the risk of collision

exists, the OOW’s decisions might go against the rules to avoid the collision due to an

agreement between the two bridges or due to an enough sea-room available on the other side

of the manoeuvrability situation (Szlapczynski and Szlapczynska, 2015b; Demirel and

Bayer, 2015).

3.5. Bridge Resource Management

3.5.1. History of Bridge Resource Management

Many books defined BRM as “ Bridge Resource Management constructs and procedures

specifically intended to address the needs and concerns of vessel personnel, maritime

operations, and conduct of the vessel in the presence of the marine pilot, and in an

emergency to ensure safe and efficient conduct of the vessel” (A. J. Swift, 2004; Parrott,

2011; Maritime Professional Training, 2016). The beginning of Bridge Resource

Management (BRM) concept goes back to 90s after many accidents (Parrott, 2011).

However, it is an outgrowth of the Crew Resource Management (CRM) from the aviation

sector, which was applied in USA military flight in the 80s and then through the commercial

flight crew (Wahl and Kongsvik, 2018). Thus, the concept and benefits of CRM spread to

health care, rail and offshore industries over the years (Hayward and Lowe, 2010). The

intention of BRM is to improve communication, teamwork, situational awareness, decision-

making and leadership (Parrott, 2011; Wahl and Kongsvik, 2018). In addition, BRM

enhances how the crew deal with emergencies, risk assessment and fatigue if it existed

15
(Parrott, 2011; Maritime Professional Training, 2016), as shown in Figure 3.2 below. In

2001, the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW) convention

highlighted the accidents, which occurred due to human factor failures, and STCW started to

develop the BRM until it became compulsory in Manila amendments in 2010 (IMO, 2011).

Figure 3.2 Hierarchy of Bridge Resource Management

In their review, Baker and McCafferty (2005) have reviewed and analysed the causes of

marine accidents. They identified the root causes of the accidents to highlight the critical

elements of accident causation. However, based on the author’s search, no recent study has

been carried out to follow the recent developments except O’Connor (2011) when he tried to

assess the effectiveness of BRM training compare to the aviation Crew Resource

Management (CRM) course, which he found that it is not possible due to the differences

between the contents of the two courses. In addition, his research was on naval marine

officers which they got more training compared to the officers on commercial ships. Even

though the annual reports from MAIB, ASTB and TSBC contained an overview of maritime

accidents, how many accidents are reported and investigated, they only show the percentage

16
of the prime elements of causation. Many research studies came after that and outlined the

general purposes of marine accidents without focusing on the accident's main cause, which is

either human and organisational factors, technical failure or others (Hetherington, Flin and

Mearns, 2006; Turan et al., 2016).

3.5.2. Bridge Team Members

The bridge team covers all crew who have duty on the ship’s bridge. The Safety Of Life At

Sea (SOLAS) convention, through the flag state, ensures that every ship should maintain a

minimum safe manning, holding appropriate documentation, check the crew safety

performance and ensure the working language is applied (IMO, 1974). The STCW provides

international standards for the minimum requirements for every rank on the ship, including

the minimum age for working onboard ships, sea-time service, and knowledge requisition for

every crew and certification specifications (IMO, 2017). During the normal bridge-watch as

minimum manning, the bridge must be occupied by an officer of the watch (OOW) along

with rating crew, Ordinary seaman (OS) or Able Seaman (AB), for lookout or controlling the

wheel (IMO, 1998). In critical circumstances, the ship’s captain/master should be on the

bridge to support the bridge team. Certain conditions, such as training and entering/leaving

the port, require a deck cadet and a pilot to be available on the bridge to support the bridge

team.

3.5.2.1. Captain/Master

The ship’s captain/master is the highest certified rank on the ship and the ship commander,

and he/she must hold a Certificate of Competency grade 1 (CoC) or equivalent Certificate of

Endorsement (CoE) and BRM certificate as a requirement of STCW Convention, which

requires a maritime education, training and sea-time service. He/she must ensure the

efficiency of the bridge operation, safety, controlling and following the regulation. He/she

17
must be in charge of the bridge team along with all resources that are available on the bridge

while making sure that the bridge navigation is performed in a safe manner.

3.5.2.2. Officer of the Watch (OOW)

The OOW is the responsible officer to maintain a safe navigational watch when the master is

off charge. The OOW must hold a (CoC) or equivalent grade 2 to 4 depends on the rank

before he can undertake bridge duties as well as a BRM certificate. The 1st/Chief Officer is

the second of the command after the captain holds CoC 2, the 2nd Officer hold CoC 3, and

the 3rd Officer hold CoC 4. The OOW must perform a safe navigational watch, follow the

bridge procedures at all time. The OOW should not leave the bridge unmanned under any

circumstances unless an equivalent OOW or the captain is available and carried out a good

lookout by utilising all navigational equipment available in the bridge. Moreover, he/she

must communicate and perform teamwork with other bridge team members.

3.5.2.3. Deck Rating

The deck crew are members of the ship who do not need a CoC to work onboard the ship;

accordingly, they are not participating in the BRM course while they require to participate in

some safety courses. Their duty is to assist the captain and the OOW during the navigational

watch as a lookout or control the wheel if required. As rating crew have duties on the bridge,

they must perform a sharp lookout, communicate with other team members and not hesitate

to report any hazard that can affect the safety of navigation.

3.5.2.4. Deck Cadet

The deck cadet is a seafarer who joins the ship to complete his/her practical training after/or

during the nautical studies in a maritime institution to fulfil the CoC criteria. The cadet must

serve between 12-18 months onboard the ship to finish his/her sea-time to be qualified for

the CoC examination to be an OOW. As the rating, the cadet needs to attend several safety

courses before joining the ship; BRM is not one of them, but during his/her studies, the cadet

18
takes BRM fundamentals through many teaching modules. For his/her duty onboard the ship,

the cadet must serve in both bridge and deck under the OOW and the Bosun supervision. The

cadet must maintain a full navigational watch that includes communication, teamwork,

lookout, etc. and any additional work that can be assigned by the captain or OOW.

Therefore, despite the fact that it is not compulsory for Cadets, BRM is essential for cadets

considering their duties and possible impact on team performance.

3.5.2.5. Pilot

The pilot is a seafarer who manoeuvres the ship in a special area such as ports, channels, etc.,

that are not frequent areas for the ship’s captain and, therefore, is recognised as a hazardous

navigational area. The pilot must have local knowledge and experience to navigate in that

area, and in a majority of countries, the pilot must hold a CoC certificate; some countries do

not require that, along with a pilot certificate. The pilot must team up, communicate and

exchange the information and the berthing/unberthing instruction with the ship’s captain and

other bridge team member. During the pilotage operation, the pilot is responsible for steering

the ship, but the captain is still responsible for the safety of the ship, and if he left the bridge,

for any reason, the duty OOW takes the con after him, not the pilot.

3.5.3. Communication

Many accidents occurred due to the lack of communication between the bridge team

members (including the pilot) and with other targets due to the communication problems

between the parties involved, especially when approaching or leaving the ports (Baker and

McCafferty, 2005; Hetherington, Flin and Mearns, 2006). It has never been cited that the

IMO recommend external communication via the VHF as a tool for collision avoidance

practice; instead, the bridge team could use the sound or light signals to refer to their action,

which is found more difficult to memorised and applied it in critical situations comparing to

using VHF as communication method (Abdushkour, 2020). Every vessel should comply with

19
COLREG rules in the first place. Simultaneously, it is recommended to make bridge-to-

bridge communication in the collision case or remove the hesitancy between the OOWs in

the local area such as US local waters (Harding, 2002). In 2003, Koester (2003) stated that

when communication increases, the preparedness for the potentially safety-critical situation

will increase, and this will reflect positively on managing future risky situations.

3.5.4. Teamwork

Salas et, al. (1995) define a team as “a distinguishable set of two or more people who

interact dynamically, interdependently and adaptively toward a common and valued goal,

who have each been assigned specific roles or functions to perform and who have a limited

life span of membership”.

Teamwork and taskwork are two constituents of collaborative endeavour. Teamwork is

comprised of coordination and interaction between individuals to fulfil specific tasks that

ultimately lead to achieving the team’s goals. On the contrary, taskwork includes situations

where individuals work solely on different tasks. Wilson et al., (2007) define teamwork as “a

multidimensional, dynamic construct that refers to a set of interrelated cognitions,

behaviours and attitudes that occur as team members perform a task that results in a

coordinated and synchronised collective action”. According to Burke (2004), taskwork and

teamwork are both needed to fulfil team tasks successfully. When maritime accidents due to

lack of teamwork are studied, the main reasons are identified as misunderstanding between

bridge team members, deficiency of communication and insufficiency of coordination

(Mansson, Lutzhoft and Brooks, 2017). Moreover, Lützhöft and Bruno (2009) stated that

lack of communication and trust between team members due to their role in the team, skills,

incompetency and first language of communication would reduce the effectiveness of

teamwork. Also, the absence of strong leadership, misdistribution of roles and duties will

increase the amount of complication between the bridge team members while causing

teamwork performance deficiency (Brodje et al., 2013).

20
 3.5.5. The Differences between BRM and Crew Resource Management

(CRM) for Aviation

After many catastrophic aviation accidents which occurred due to human factors in the last

century, several commercial aviation companies and international aviation safety agencies

that include the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), European Union Aviation Safety

Agency (EASA), introduced the Cockpit Resource Management as a training course for all

pilots and their assistance in the cockpit only in the beginning of the middle of 80s.

However, at the beginning of the 90s, a new implementation was added to include the cabin

crew, flight dispatchers and maintenance personnel in the training course, which is known

nowadays as Crew Recourse Management (CRM). This is different from the maritime BRM

course participants (Foushee and Helmreich, 2010; Hayward and Lowe, 2010). The aviation

CRM course aims to enhance the crew performance through utilising communication,

leadership, teamwork and maintenance, problem-solving, decision-making and maintaining

SA (Foushee and Helmreich, 2010; Ginnett, 2010; Kanki, 2010; Orasanu, 2010). According

to many aviation institutions, even those owned by commercial companies, all CRM’s

contents will be addressed and taught at the same quality without any difference between the

institutions to ensure the equality of training efficiency for all participants worldwide.

However, in many maritime institutions, it was found that there are differences in the course

contents. Furthermore, some of the maritime institutions which are owned by commercial

companies do not accept any participant who does not belong to this company.

21
 3.6. Situational Awareness

3.6.1. Background

SA is the attractive term, which describes the awareness level that an individual has of a

situation, an operator’s dynamic understanding of “what is going on” (Endsley, 1995c). The

first use of this concept was in the military aviation domain to describe a critical asset for

military aircraft crews during the First World War (Endsley, 1995c). Despite this, it initiated

to receive attention from academia around the beginning of the 1990s (Stanton and Young,

2000), when SA-related research studies started to appear in the aviation and air traffic

control domains (Endsley and Connors, 2008; Salmon, 2008).

In 1995, the Human Factors journal started to focus on SA, which became a key topic within

the HF research community, and many researchers commenced to investigate the concept in

different domains (Salmon, 2008).

The SA concept has since developed into a fundamental theme within system design and

evaluation and continues to dominate HF research worldwide. Moreover, a peer-reviewed

academic journal article specified that SA research studies had been reported in over 20

different scientific journals covering a varied range of different sectors, ranging from HF and

transportation to the sport, disaster response and artificial intelligence (Salmon, 2008).

3.6.2. Definition of Situational Awareness

For nearly half a century, many researchers tried to define what SA is. Also, they came with

over 30 definitions to demonstrate and explain the SA. The most of definitions that been

used in research studies up to now are summarised below.

In 1991, Fracker (1991) defined SA as “the combining of new information with existing

knowledge in working memory and the development of a composite picture of the situation

22
along with projections of future status and subsequent decisions as to appropriate courses of

action to take”.

In 1994, Dominquez (1994) stated SA as “continuous extraction of environmental

information, and integration of this information with previous knowledge to form a coherent

mental picture, and the use of that picture in directing future perception and anticipating

future events”.

In 1995, Smith and Hancock (1995) described SA as “the invariant in the agent-environment

system that generates the momentary knowledge and behaviour required to attain the goals

specified by an arbiter of performance in the environment”.

In the same year, Endsley (1995) declared that SA is “the perception of the elements in the

environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the

projection of their status in the near future”. Many researchers have been using this

definition until recently(Sharma, Nazir and Ernstsen, 2019).

While in 1999, Bedny and Meister (1999) stated that “the conscious dynamic reflection on

the situation by an individual. It provides a dynamic orientation to the situation, the

opportunity to reflect not only on the past, present and future, but the potential features of

the situation. The dynamic reflection contains logical-conceptual, imaginative, conscious

and unconscious components which enable individuals to develop mental models of external

events”, who discussed Endsley’s concept (Salmon, 2008).

3.6.3. Individual models for situational awareness

In this section, an overview of the most common models about situational awareness used

for research purposes is provided below.

23
 3.6.3.1. Three-Level Model by Endsley

Endsley has divvied her vision of SA into three levels to explain the operator or individual

situational assessment to achieve the required SA that separates it from the processes shown

in Figure 3.3 below.

This model is a basic model that requires information as an input given to the system or the

individual to execute some complex operation or involved in the decision-making process.

When the operator acquires this information, he/she will be in a position to understand it

from the set of inputs he/she got. It will lead to decision making and taking action. Endsley’s

model of SA achievement and maintenance is influenced by the operator experience,

training, workload etc. (Endsley, 1995c).

Figure 3.3 The three-level model of situational awareness (Endsley, 1995b).

24
Level 1: Perception of the Elements in the current situation
The first step involves recognising the status, features and dynamics of event-related

elements in the surrounding environment. Endsley clarified at this point that the only

important thing is to understand the input data without processing it. Some factors affect the

individual’s decision-making process through understanding this data, such as the nature of

the task, complexity of the operation, nature of input information, level of difficulty,

dependent variables, operator goals, the experience of the individual, expectations of the

process and operator, design interface, system design complexity, man-machine interaction,

capabilities and automation of the machinery. Moreover, Endsley added, “a person’s goals

and plans direct which aspects of the environment are attended to during the development of

SA” (Endsley, 1995; Salmon, 2008; Kumar, 2014).

Level 2: Comprehension of the Current Situation

Level 2 SA is a significant stage as the event's aims depend on the understanding of the

operator or an individual about the importance of data to comprehend or realise. A particular

work task can be performed in a more effective and safer way. Also, in level 2 SA “the

decision-maker forms a holistic picture of the environment, comprehending the significance

of objects and events”.

There are some common factors between level 1 and level 2 of SA, as the interpretation and

comprehension of SA-related data is influenced by an individual’s goals, expectations,

experience in the form of mental models, and preconceptions regarding the situation. With

this regard, operators with such experience will use the common factors to combine level 1

of SA with Level 2 to accomplish their objective in a much better and safest way. The only

difference here is the individual or operator's potential to recognise the main items for

achieving a particular work task’s goal.

25
Level 3: Projection of Future Status

Level 3 of SA involves determining the system's future states and its elements for the

complex and different decision-making processes, which require extreme thinking and

assessment to achieve the objective in the future event unknown to this time of level 2 SA.

By applying level 1 and 2 SA-related knowledge, and experience in the way of mental

models, operators can predict likely future states in a particular situation.

This relationship of situational data with the experience allows operators to estimate future

situational events.

Therefore, level 3 of the SA model has a magnificent role in the increase and maintenance of

SA. Training and experience (mental models) are used to assist the target of SA by directing

attention to important elements in the environment (level 1), gathering the elements to

understand their meaning (level 2) and finally, create possible future states and events (level

3).

26
 3.6.3.2. Active Theory by Bendy and Meister

Endsley’s model describes SA as a simple activity approach focusing on different processes

that are associated with the tasks to be executed by the operator, taking into consideration the

human action and behaviour to achieve this task (Endsley, 1995, Salmon, 2008). The active

theory model is covering the individuals’ objectives that show the end state of the activity.

Taking into account their motivation, the model implements exploratory actions and past

experiences to complete the conceptional model, as shown in Figure 3.4 below (Bendy and

Meister, 1999).

Figure 3.4 Active Theory approach to situational awareness (from Bedny and Meister, 1999).

There is a difference between the final goal and the current situation, which encourages the

operator to take action to achieve this goal. Bendy and Meister divided the end state activity

27
into three levels: firstly, the orientation level, which led to the executive and the evaluative

level. The orientation level puts spotlights on the initial development stage, where the

internal view of the current situation is accessed by applying the executive part to reach the

optimum goal via decision-making and action to be done.

The blocks in above are carrying information that is related to each other to accomplish their

exact targets. The incoming information (box 1) is supported by an individual’s goals (box

2), the current situation conceptual model (box 8) and his/her experience (box 7). This form

of clarification then adjusts the goals and the model of the current situation. The surrounding

environmental factors are then identified (box 3), which is important in the task or the end

goal with encouraging motivation components a) Sense and b) Motivation (box 4). That will

lead to focusing their interaction on decision-making and performance (box 5). Then, it is

extended by the operator to reach the task goals (box 2) and the evaluation of the current

situation (box 6). The result of this process is saved as experience (box 7), which is linked to

the conceptual model (box 8) along with the extension from (box 2).

3.6.3.3. The Perceptual Cycle Approach by Smith and Hancock

Smith and Hancock described SA as a huge quantity of knowledge, which is designed for

taking actions. Smith and Hancock’s model was inspired by Niesser, (1976), who created the

first perceptual cycle model, which takes into account the individual’s interface with the

surrounding environment and information sequence role in these interfaces. The model

includes the operator’s observation of the external environment that is part of the knowledge

model designed to do the task. This observation results in modifying the original knowledge

model, which in turn directs further exploration. By using this approach, Smith and Hancock

concluded that SA is information that the operator achieves through repeated interactions

with the surrounding environment. They found that the process of reaching and maintaining

SA takes into account internal mental models, which are built by the operator who

28
accomplishes SA either by repeated exchange with the world or by previous experience of

similar situations.

The mental models’ performances as an intermediate for current situational events bring the

operator to a certain level which he/she must capture the surrounding environment to

understand specific tasks, and leading them to take action according to his/her knowledge

gained through repeated interactions or previous experiences. Therefore, the operator would

get a better understanding of the situation to meet his/her final goals. However, some doubt

and unpredicted situation produce changes in the existing model, which is demonstrated in

detail in Figure 3.5 shown below.

Figure 3.5 The perceptual cycle model (Smith and Hancock, 1995)(Salmon, 2008).

Here the SA is the combined process and the product, which presents a clarification of the

cognitive activity involved in achieving SA and decision as to what the product of SA

contains.

29
 3.6.3.4. Comparison between SA models

Table 3.1 below shows a comparison between the most known and used SA models.

Table 3.1 The differences between the Individual SA models

Three-Level Model Active Theory The Perceptual

Cycle Approach
Advantages • Widely used. • The model is • The model is
• Simple to considered as considered as
demonstrate and product and product and
apply the model process of SA. process of SA.
in different fields. • Clear description • The model is
• The model can be for each block and based on a well-
utilised for its function. described theory.
important factors
such as training
and workload.
• Availability of
measurement
methods works
with the model
effectively (in
case if needed)
• This model is
used in many
sectors,
especially in the
maritime sector,
in a wide range of
research studies.

30
Disadvantages • Limited use in • It is very complex • It is complex.
psychological and hard to apply • Limited use.
models, e.g. this model in the
information maritime sector.
process. • Limited use.
• The model is • No measurement
considered a method applies to
product by this model.
dividing the SA
into three levels.

There is no doubt that Endsley’s model is the most used method in human factor literature

generally, and SA precisely compares to the other models (Salmon, 2008). The model allows

to measure and support the SA more efficiently and effectively by dividing the SA into

three-level. Despite the disadvantages of Endsley’s model, this model is easy to modify to be

more suitable for the maritime sector than the other models. Also, it easy to be explained and

understandable the target audience due to dividing the SA into three levels.

3.6.4. Team situational awareness

Throughout the last thirty years, there has been a substantial increase in the use of teams

(Leonard, Graham and Bonacum, 2004; Stanton et al., 2017). The expanding intricacy of

work and work strategy and the efficacy of well-organised teams has made the use of teams

superior to sole operators. This has led to the capability of conducting challenging and

problematic tasks, enhanced productivity and decision making (Salmon, 2008), working

under immense pressure and decreasing the amount of error (Baker and Salas, 1992; Salas,

Cooke and Rosen, 2008). The majority of contemporary systems are comprised of teams;

this has led to the enhanced importance of team situational awareness in the Human Factors

community. Moreover, complex systems using teams will rise dramatically due to

technological capabilities' continuous growth (Fiore et al., 2003).

31
Team SA is undoubtedly more than simply joining an individual team member’s situational

awareness together (Salas et al., 1995). Since team SA constitutes high levels of cognition,

exploring its constitution is both challenging and lacking, which makes it a conflict area as

individual SA is (Salas, Muniz and Prince, 2006). Team SA is allegedly multi-component

and involves incorporating individual team member SA with the whole team SA, the so-

called “common picture”. Efforts to discern team SA focused on “shared understanding” of

the same situation. (Nofi, 2000), for example, defines team SA as “a shared awareness of a

particular situation”, and (Perla et al., 2000) suggest that “when used in the sense of shared

awareness of a situation,‟ shared SA implies that we all understand a given situation in the

same way”. Team SA involves every team members SA and the extent of shared

understanding amongst them (Salas, Muniz and Prince, 2006). Salas et al., (1995), suggested

a scheme of SA, proposed that it involves two meanings: individual SA and team processes

and that it relies on communications at differing magnitudes. Various team performance

factors influence the comprehension of SA elements, such as the communication of mission

objectives, individual tasks and roles, as well as team capability. Strategy limitations can be

equilibrated by information exchange and communication guided by the coordination

between team members (Salas et al., 1995). It can be acknowledged that this is affected by

the understanding of other team members. It is a fact that achieving team SA results in

individual SA as individual SA is established and then shared with other team members,

which ultimately establishes and alters team members’ SA.

(Salas et al., 1995) define team SA as “the shared understanding of a situation among team

members at one point in time and dissolve that team SA “occurs as a consequence of an

interaction of an individual’s pre-existing relevant knowledge and expectations; the

information available from the environment; and cognitive processing skills that include

attention allocation, perception, data extraction, comprehension and projection”.

32
 3.6.5. Shared situational awareness

There is a difference between team SA and shared SA (Endsley, 1995c) and (Endsley and

Jones, 1997). Shared SA stands for the area of intersection between team members SA

elements. This means that the SA of every individual in the team required for a particular

task intersects with other individual’s requirements. (Endsley and Jones, 1997) define shared

SA as “the degree to which team members have the same SA on shared SA requirements”.

However, they define team SA as “the degree to which every team member possesses the SA

required for his or her responsibilities”. In certain situations, SA will overlap between

individuals in the same team so that each individual will understand and execute SA

elements pertaining to their role as well as other SA elements required by other individuals

in the team (Endsley, 1995b). Team accomplishment can only be achieved when each team

member has superb SA within their fundamental principles and, at the same time, equal SA

for the shared elements (Endsley and Robertson, 2000).

Justification of shared SA can be used practically in several fields. For instance, in

aeroplanes' maintenance teams, excellent team SA requires comprehension of the team

members to share data amongst each other (Endsley and Robertson, 2000). Furthermore,

Endsley and Robertson (2000) proposed that team performance's key influencers are the

shared goals, self-sufficiency of team members’ activities, and the distribution of work

amongst team members. This denotes that some SA requirements are independent such as

the workload of the team, but at the same time, team members have shared goals and

perform inter-reliant activities so that they all hold shared SA. Endsley and Robertson

suggest that well-organised team execution relies on team members having well-established

SA solitarily and the exact SA on shared SA requirements.

33
 3.6.6. Development of team and shared situation awareness

The consequences of team process variables on team SA have not been thoroughly

investigated (Salas et al., 1995). The effect of enhanced teamwork on team SA is thought to

be exponential; however, the association between team SA and team conducts and qualities

is not entirely understood. Investigators have concentrated their research on communication

as the most important component of the team and shared SA (Nofi, 2000). Entin and Entin

(2000) describe communication as a requirement for an advanced team SA. Salas et al.

(1995) propose that team procedure, which enhances communication, for example,

confidence, preparedness, and leadership, influence SA expansion considerably. The

environment that encourages clear and open communication is one of the essential elements

to promote shared SA (Salas et al., 2001). The same reflection was made by Endsley

(1995c), who proposed that team member SA of common features could provide a guide for

teamwork or team communication.

Lloyd and Alston (2003) argue that mutual team comprehension is formed by team members

acquiring individual SA then conveying it across the team. Close observation is another

crucial part of team SA by which team members carefully observe one another’s

performance, e.g. Rognin, Salembier and Zouinar, (1998), enabling the recognition of

situational information and comprehension of it by other team members without the need for

confrontation. Observing common activities stands for “the ability to keep track of fellow

team members work, while carrying out their own work, to ensure that everything is running

as expected and to ensure that they are following procedures correctly” (Wilson et al., 2007);

This demands team members to comprehend the individual team members, collective team

tasks, knowledge of the team members’ duties, commitment, and anticipation of what team

members ought to implement.

A further vital notion to team SA is the concept of shared mental models. Mental models are

illustrations of the inner process of a system. They have been defined as “knowledge

34
structures, cognitive representations or mechanisms which humans use to organise new

information, to describe, explain and predict events as well as to guide their interactions with

others” (Paris, Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 2000). The shared mental model has been further

described by Fiore et al. (2003) as “the activation in working memory of team and task-

related knowledge while engaged in team interaction”. As stated by Klein (2000), shared

mental models stands for the degree that members have the same comprehension of the

important factors in procedures; for instance, duties and purposes of each team member,

essential qualities of the tasks, and utilisation of supplies. Stout et al. (1999) propose that

shared mental models “are thought to provide team members with a common understanding

of who is responsible for what task and what information requirements are. In turn, this

allows them to anticipate one another’s needs so that they can work in sync”. In the opinion

of Salas et al. (1995) shared mental models are prearranged form of knowledge that is

common throughout team members. Cannon-Bowers and Salas (1997) advocate that shared

mental paradigms consists of a combined task and team goals as well as the knowledge of

individual tasks and team member duties. Endsley and Jones (1997) argue that shared mental

models ought to integrate the understanding of different team roles, strategies, data

necessities, possible rearrangements, and the capability to utilise the actions and

counteractions of other teams. Many investigators have hypothesised the significance of

shared mental models in the advancement and conservation of team SA. As Langan-Fox,

Code and Langfield-Smith (2000) mentioned, for effective team functioning to be

constructive, there must be a shared mental model throughout team members.

Furthermore, effective teams utilise shared mental models to manage actions (Fiore et al.,

2003). Shared mental models are believed to ease communications between team members

Perla et al., (2000), enabling team members to predict other team members' actions (Salas,

Stout and Cannon-Bowers, 1994; Fiore et al., 2003). Salas et al. (1995) go on to propose that

when communication means are scarce, shared mental models permit team members to

35
predict other team members actions and data needs. They also advocate that when it comes

to team tasks, shared mental models enable team members to work within a known structure.

Endsley (1995a) reasons that team SA is more dependent on shared mental models than it is

on spoken communication.

3.6.7. Maritime Situational Awareness

The concept of SA was predominantly implicated in the aviation sector, which is mentioned

above, for the last two decades; however, various SA research studies were conducted in the

field of maritime navigation (Chauvin, Clostermann and Hoc, 2009; Gartenberg et al., 2014;

Sharma, Nazir and Ernstsen, 2019).

To know the impact of SA on merchant shipping operations, Grech, Horberry and Smith,

(2002) scrutinised several accident reports and studied their connection with the lack of SA.

Grech, Horberry and Koester (2008) reflected that SA is a significant concern related to the

performance of marine navigators. They then considered workload and attention as separate

elements contributing to SA. Furthermore, Chauvin and Lardjane (2008) and Chauvin (2011)

displayed the use of the Endsley SA three levels concept as a decision-making model for

ships encountering manoeuvrability situations.

The methodology of SA has been progressively used for accident analysis and has been

utilised in guidelines for training and operations in marine navigation. Human element

importance in navigation has been studied by Hetherington, Flin and Mearns (2006), who

noticed that the lack of SA is one of the leading individual factors for maritime accidents. In

an attempt to analyse maritime accidents, Grech, Horberry and Smith, (2002) found that SA

issues cause 71% of the human and organisational factors. Furthermore, dissection of the

figures utilising Endsley’s taxonomy model (Endsley, 1995a) showed a tendency in SA

affiliated errors with 58.5% errors occurring at Level 1, 32.7% at Level 2 and 8.8% at Level

3. Jones and Endsley (1996) have shown similar figures as well. Several other research

36
studies were conducted by Sneddon, Mearns and Flin (2013) and Sandhåland, Oltedal and

Eid, (2015) to investigate the offshore segment and determine factors impacting SA of the

maritime navigators and operators. Cordon, Mestre and Walliser (2017) identified spatial

aptitude, attention, organisation, awareness, and leadership in their research and were further

subcategorised by Endsley’s three-level model in their aptitude model. SA of the maritime

crew might potentially be the role of the captain’s leadership, as suggested by Sætrevik and

Hystad (2017).

With regards to Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), many research studies were published about

the application of SA in the field of maritime navigation which they all refer to Endsley’s

model (Cordon, Mestre and Walliser, 2017; Sætrevik and Hystad, 2017; Sharma, Nazir and

Ernstsen, 2019). For instance, Nilsson, Gärling and Lützhöft (2009) identified the factors to

implement SA in maritime surveillance, which experienced VTS operators used. Wiersma

(2010) used a practical approach of SA on the Port of Rotterdam VTS. Van Westrenen and

Praetorius (2014) produced a theoretical approach utilising SA to evaluate the performance

in VTS.

3.7. Maritime Simulator Experiments

The most common reasons for maritime accidents are attributed to human and organizational

factors, comprising more than 80% of maritime accidents. For example, misjudgement, poor

lookout and not following regulations are examples of accident causes related to human

factors. Bridge operation requires performing various cognitive tasks at the same time,

necessitating excellent situational awareness and correct judgement, which can sometimes

fail, whereby causing a collision. The traditional method of analysing human and

organizational factors is not enough, as it cannot find the relationship between performance-

shaping factors and human performance during operation and is not beneficial for individual

evaluation (Liu et al., 2016). The maritime education domain often tries to meet training

37
aims within the subject of human factors related to operator performance in technological

working environments along with the ergonomic design of such settings (Vicente et al.,

2004; Hontvedt, 2015). Maritime simulators are usually utilised for learning professional

skills, collaboration and teamwork in a safe operational environment. The current research

indicates that simulator training can deliver content and scenarios and instructional features,

including opportunities to assess individual and team activities in different professional

fields, such as medical, aeronautic, and maritime (Hontvedt, 2015).

Schuffel, Boer and Van Breda (1989) conducted a study on the feasibility of an extremely

automated ship’s bridge for single-handed navigation. The research defined a function

allocation process, which forms the foundation for an automated bridge concept that can be

applied to future merchant vessels. The approach provides an effective ergonomic design to

optimise the safety of the navigational system and the working conditions. It provides a

balanced relationship between the four core elements of the manship system: software

(procedures, rules, regulations), hardware (displays, controls, process dynamics),

environment (climate, vibrations, noise) and life-ware (motivation, stress, skill). The authors

believe that the most important task in the integration process is functional allocation, which

concerns the differentiation between human and automated functions. This step is necessary

in order to define the efficiency of the bridge layout, especially the workstation. To validate

the model and the innovative bridge design, they used a sequence of simulation experiments.

They investigated the navigational performance efficiency and safety during the conduct of

such application. The simulator helped to verify the performance of the proposed bridge

design/system by implementing the model in operating conditions similar to those in reality.

The study focused on measuring the workload generated by the primary tasks. The

experiments were carried out by conducting navigational tasks and Continuous Memory

Tasks (CMT). The authors selected 32 OOWs for participation in the ship simulation. The

results showed that correct functional allocation could increase the safety of navigation by

38
improving task performance. The study places a large emphasis on the feasibility of human

performance on the ship’s bridge. The new approach did not affect the navigator’s mental

load. However, the consequences of repetitive duty conditions for operators’ situational

awareness were not discussed. Besides, not all of the functions can be automated.

Furthermore, operators’ skills and motivation required after changing the task structure from

active manual control to passive monitoring control need further investigation.

Nilsson, Gärling and Lützhöft (2009) conducted a comparative simulator study between an

integrated ship navigation system bridge and a bridge that did not contain modern

conventional navigational equipment. Actual event scenarios were designed to contain

several challenging conditions during sailing in a fairway. Different elements were assessed

in the scenario, such as performance, workload, and effective responses. Experiment

outcomes demonstrated not much of a statistical difference between both bridges’

performance. Nevertheless, about technical performance, it was found that experienced

navigators executed much more effectively on the conventional bridge and less experienced

officers performed more effectively on the technically advanced bridge. This is due to the

fact that younger people are more skilled with modern electronic systems and therefore

performed well. In contrast, the older seafarers performed better with traditional systems

because they are not very skilled with the latest electronic systems.

Gould et al. (2009) presented a study to examine mental workload and performance and used

a high-speed ship simulator. It compared two navigational systems for defining the vessel

location: Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) and conventional paper

charts. The experiment scenario included a navigational track of 50 nautical miles containing

various sailing conditions 20 cadets performed. The results illustrated that using the ECDIS

for bridge navigation significantly enhanced course-keeping quality; nonetheless, it

decreased the communication among the bridge team. No differences were observed in the

mental workload aspect between groups. After measuring the heart rate variability and skin

39
conductance of different groups, it indicated a higher workload in the conventional method

for navigation, but the variances were not significant.

Chauvin, Clostermann and Hoc, (2009) adapted the study to examine the impact of a training

programme on the capacity of the officer of the watch (OOW) to make decisions in collision

avoidance conditions in a bridge simulator. Drills were planned so as to assess the impact of

the training course. It developed a set of indicators that the OOW must recognise: cue

recognition, the formation of anticipation, appropriate objective identification, and

realisation of distinctive actions. The simulator experiments' observation results indicated

that students were incapable of managing such conditions or even remembering their key

features as they learned in class. As a result, the decision-making training did not develop

students’ capacity to the level that helped them to examine the complex situation. It is

consequently essential to develop new educational methods that give cadets the capacity to

analyse a situation rapidly and precisely in order to take suitable actions. It is recommended

that to improve OOWs’ capacity to perform navigational tasks, and shipping organisations

should replace the long onboard training with an intensive training program on maritime

simulators so as to repeat the same critical situations in a safe environment.

The lack of seafarer numbers, the developed technology onboard the ship, and enhancing the

crew skills to work parallel with this technology are the main concern of the shipping

industry. The development of the Crew Resource Management course (CRM) has become

fundamental to solve these problems. The validity of this training requires assessment,

especially as the majority of accidents occur because of human and organizational factors,

such as those from operators, organisation, maintenance, design, installation and assembly

(Håvold et al., 2015). Håvold et al. (2015) evaluated the effectiveness of CRM training in

the anchor-handling simulator, which is expected to develop crew skills with respect to

teamwork, leadership and communication. They distributed a questionnaire, which covered

the course quality and contents, knowledge and skills acquired, and future application among

40
369 seafarers who have more than one year of experience onboard ships. The outcome

results were examined by ANOVA, including other variables such as age, employment, and

anchor-handling practice. The research results showed that CRM training enhanced the

participants’ performance, such as change-intended behaviour, improved skills, knowledge

and understanding, and the course's content by more than 60%. However, the assessment of

this research could be affected by the objectives of participants which are required to be

explored more in the CRM area.

Liu et al. (2016) conducted research aimed to improve cadets’ performance by assessing and

understanding the relationship between brain workload, stress and their performance. They

focused on cadets’ performance by observing different brain conditions, such as workload,

stress, and situational awareness during bridge operation. They used electroencephalography

in a human factor analysis system designed for full-mission simulator assessment and

measurement of cadets’ cognitive abilities. They recorded cadets’ performances in different

sailing scenarios that include night and day navigation and sailing in varying weather and

traffic conditions for analysis and assessment. The research results specified that the model

was useful for detecting cadets’ emotions, situational awareness, brain workload and stress

levels during the bridge operation. Also, it was possible to assess the condition of OOWs

before performing a navigation watch.

Badokhon (2018b) aimed to improve the safety and the resilience of the navigation bridge

standard operating procedure by performing a developed bridge operating checklist and

procedure forms to guide one of the bridge team members who participated in this test before

the navigational watch. He evaluated the performance of the two teams’ judgement ability,

emergency preparation, situational awareness, lookout quality, alarm management,

leadership, passage planning and learning by exposing them to different sailing scenarios

that include normal navigation, passing agreement, restricted visibility, shallow water effect

and pilot onboard. The outcome of his research is the performance of the team, who worked

41
under the developed procedure, was 124% higher than another group. However, the

research's measurement was focused on the individual skills’ rather than the teamwork

performance by delivering the developed procedures within the preparation time before

starting the scenarios. Also, the assessment of this research could be affected by the

subjectivity of participants.

Overall, the maritime simulator experiments signposted numerous gaps. The navigational

operation involves performing several cognitive tasks at the same time, which require

building and maintaining situational awareness along with the right decision-making to avoid

a collision. The results were short of quantitative measurement due to the necessity of

analysing human and organizational factors and performance with several measurement

techniques that can be performed by utilising the maritime simulator. The experienced

OOWs have performed more effectively on a traditional bridge operation, while the less

experienced OOWs have performed much efficiently on the technically advanced bridge

operation. Also, the review shows that using electronic navigational equipment has enhanced

the navigational practice but, it decreased the communication and teamwork among the

bridge team, which has been suggested that more research is required in the bridge resources

management area.

3.8. Summary

The literature on enhancing navigational safety through increasing situational awareness and

teamwork methods was reviewed, and gaps were identified. Even though a significant

number of research studies has been conducted in this area, a comprehensive assessment to

increase the seafarers’ skills by performing an efficient bridge resource management among

the bridge team that includes all the bridge members, according to the best of this author’s

knowledge, does not exist.

42
 4. Methodology

4.1. Chapter Overview

This chapter presents the approach adopted and the methodology to conduct the aims and

objectives of this research.

4.2. Improving Navigational Safety by Enhancing the Performance of

Crew

Based on the research problem identified in Chapter 2 and the maritime accidents analysed,

this research's aims and objectives will be achieved by focusing on crew performance as a

team. The assessment for the situational awareness of crew members is established as the

main area for enhancing navigational safety and teamwork in the bridge. Identification of the

interaction issues among bridge team members will be studied, including the weaknesses of

teamwork, sharing situational awareness through communication. Various BRM courses in

different maritime institutions will be attended to observe the current practice of addressing

the above issues through training. Finally, a new BRM course that can improve the

performance of the bridge team will be developed. The effectiveness of the new course will

be assessed via a case study in the maritime simulator to measure the quality and the

performance of the bridge team actions. The proposed methodology, as shown in Figure 4.1

The proposed Navigational Safety for Crew Member Assessment and Improvement

Methodology below, comprises of three assessments and two improvement sub-methods,

which are:

• Review of Maritime Accidents

• Situation Awareness Survey for Crew Members.

• Identify the differences among various BRM Courses.

• Develop Bridge Resource Management for Seafarers.

43
 • Perform Simulator Experiments to test and validate the proposed BRM approach.

Figure 4.1 The proposed Navigational Safety for Crew Member Assessment and Improvement Methodology

Each step of those methodologies will go through the development and an improvement

phase. Then, data collection will be performed. Therefore, each method is applied

independently, but all of them are linked to support each other to achieve this research's main

aim.

In order to find the weaknesses within the seafarers' performance on the bridge, the

following step will occur, which shows above in Figure 4.1. A review of many accident

44
reports will take place to identify the factors that affect the bridge team’s SA. Then, a survey

will be established; each question will represent an accident or more, to be distributed to the

seafarers and collect their responses to be analysed afterwards. Later, attending BRM

courses in different maritime institutions to highlight BRM gaps that might affect the bridge

team's performance might affect the bridge team's performance. Therefore, finally, proper

improvement plans will be proposed and tested based on the problems identified. The

developed course and the simulator experiments are designed to complement each other. The

new BRM course is proposed to help the seafarers enhance their skills by addressing all

weakness identified. Then, the proposed course is validated by using the full-mission bridge

simulator experiments to enhance the quality proposed of the BRM course. The overall

structure is briefly described below:Firstly, the maritime accidents were collected from three

different marine accident investigation boards (MAIB, ATSB and TSBC). They were then

reviewed to select the accidents caused by the bridge team's errors. Those accidents are then

analysed in order to capture the underlying reasons that led to the loss of SA of the bridge

team. Underlying reasons are collected and utilised to develop the questions for the

questionnaire. Secondly, the questionnaire is distributed to the seafarers to capture their

attitude towards navigational safety. The collected feedback will be analysed to determine

the weakness of the BRM,

Finally, a comparison had been made to capture the differences between BRM courses

offered by different institutions to highlight the deficiency of BRM contents and teaching

methods after attending various courses in different maritime institutions. When all the

assessments are completed and all the gaps are identified through these assessments

methodologies, a new Bridge Resource Management for seafarers (BRMs) course is

developed. The new BRM course will be delivered to a group of seafarer volunteers and

tested using a full-mission maritime simulator to validate the methodology.

45
4.2.1. Review of the Maritime Accidents

Maritime accident reports from MAIB, ATSB and TSBC will be collected and reviewed

based on various accidents (collision, grounding, contact, etc.) that occurred due to lack of

situational awareness. Then, they will be categorised into two parts: those occurring during

five years before and after the BRM came into force in 2012 (IMO, 2011), to see whether the

BRM course affected shipping safety. Each report will then be analysed and reviewed to find

the underlying reasons for the accidents, which are related to lack of situational awareness.

Also, the analysis will take into consideration how the bridge team act and sometimes trace

back the time of the accident to an hour, two hours or to a day past to see if the fatigue is

causing a lack of SA.

4.2.2. Questionnaire to Assess Situation Awareness Issues for Crew Members

An online questionnaire will be developed based on the maritime accident review for crew

members to analyse their attitude towards working as a team in the bridge and optimise the

necessary level of SA to ensure navigational safety. After introducing the study and the

survey, the questionnaire will be distributed among the seafarers as a web-based online

survey, which is developed using the Qualtrics Survey Software.

After distributing the survey and collecting the seafarers' responses, the responses will be

analysed using various approaches. All the numerical values under the domain score section

are presented by colour code. The colour coding adopted in Table 4.1, as suggested was

suggested by (Arslan, 2018) for the safety climate survey, is used for the analyses of the

survey results and the following assessments are performed:

• The first part of the assessment is as shown below:

➢ Calculate the arithmetic mean of each statement for the seafarers.

➢ Calculate the arithmetic mean of each domain factor.

46
 • The second part of the safety climate assessment consist of the following:

➢ Identify statistical differences between groups like ranks, nationality, age, gender

and sea-time experience.

Statistical analysis will be performed by utilising SPSS to focus on the differences between

domains through the ANOVA test. This test will be utilised to identify the statistical

differences between different groups such as age, ranks, nationalities etc. By using this

method, the results are validated by removing the chance factor from the analysis. The

statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) interactions will be determined for each question

under a different domain.

Table 4.1 Mean score interpretation.

Mean Score Results

100% to 90% Very Good
89.99% to 80% Good
79.99% to 70% Average
Below 69.99% Very poor

As per Table 4.1 shown above, the statement and the dimension that is coloured by the dark

green colour code represent ‘no improvement is required. While the statement coloured by

the light green colour is presenting, a slight improvement is required. The amber colour is

covering that, all statements that require medium room for improvement. Finally, the red

colour code presents statements that require a significant improvement to achieve the safety

climate level.

47
4.2.3. Attending BRM courses

After searching the Bridge Resource Management courses offered by many maritime

institutions, it will be established whether there are some differences between them. So, the

BRM courses offered by different institutions will be attended, where possible. Attending

BRM course in different institutions will provide an opportunity to evaluate the followings;

why is there a difference in the course contents, why some institutions give the course in

three days, and others give it in five days, are there any differences in teaching methods or

quality and what is the approach the instructor/instructors adopt(s) to cover the critical

elements of BRM.

4.2.4. Improvement Methodologies and Action Plans

The most important part of the whole framework is the improvement methodologies and

action plans part since all the identified gaps and weaknesses will adversely affect

navigation safety if the appropriate action plans are not implemented thoroughly. All the

gaps and improvement areas are determined by utilising the proposed framework earlier.

As all bridge navigational operations are run through BRM, it is important to improve

BRM course quality to minimise accidents and incidents in the shipping industry. In

order to address the identified problems and gaps through the assessment methods, the

improvement methodologies are developed as the following:

• Develop the Bridge Resource Management course for all the Seafarers.

• Create a Case Study and Validate BRM

4.2.4.1. Development of the Bridge Resource Management course for Seafarers

After highlighting the gaps of bridge team acts from the methodological assessments, the

new course will be developed to focus on the bridge team behaviour, bridge team act and the

48
bridge team's knowledge. The course will be designed by following the IMO criteria for the

bridge resource management course (International Maritime Organisation, 2013).

4.2.4.2. Case Study and the Validation

The application of the method will determine whether the proposed solutions will improve

the navigational performance of the bridge team in terms of the bridge procedures, bridge

team knowledge and bridge team skills. The case study aims to validate the implementation

of the BRMs course. The maritime simulator will be utilised to perform the defined scenarios

to assess the quality of the bridge team performance.

The experiments include two groups, and each bridge team contains one Captain, one OOW,

one Cadet/Pilot, one Lookout and one helmsman. Group A will perform the experiments by

applying the new methods and technics, which are explained and taught in the BRM course

in chapter 8, while group B will attend the BRM course by applying the routine procedures,

which are currently implemented in the simulator centre. Both teams perform the tasks

without knowing the scenario's details, which gives more originality and random action to

their behaviours. The experiments include four different scenarios, which are open-water

navigation, Master-Pilot exchange (Berthing/Unberthing), restricted visibility and emergency

situations. The two groups will be measured according to the following indicators:

situational awareness, lookout quality, communication, leadership, teamwork and decision-

making and taking action time.

4.3. Chapter Summary

The general methodology of this PhD research is presented to assess existing BRM courses

and propose a new BRM course. This included analysing maritime accidents through

collected data, comparing BRM courses offered by different maritime institutions, building a

new BRM course, and testing it in a full mission bridge simulator.

49
 5. Maritime Accident Database Review

5.1. Introduction

Many research studies have been carried out over the years to find the main causes of

maritime accidents. Human and organizational factors were found to be the prime causative

factor as more than 80 % of the accidents are claimed to be due to human and organizational

factors. By looking closer into this large share, it was found that in some accidents reviews,

lack of SA was highlighted as the most important factor in the human and organizational

factors chain (Baker and McCafferty, 2005; Popa, 2015; Graziano, Teixeira and Guedes

Soares, 2016). However, there is no recent paper studying the accidents that occurred due to

lack of SA or the bridge team's performance. This chapter investigates the maritime

accidents caused by the absence of situational awareness, which affects the bridge team

performance by looking at what happened before the accident, what kind of action was

taken, and how the bridge team reacted.

A review of the accident reports from UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB),

Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Transportation Safety Board of Canada

(TSBC) has been carried out to investigate accidents linked to activities on the ship bridge

and underlying reasons linked to the bridge team members (master, an officer of the watch

(OOW), cadet, wheelman, lookout and pilot). The accident reports analysis included the

vessels sailing in the United Kingdom, Australian and Canadian territorial waters, or vessels

under the UK, Australian and Canadian flags.

5.2. Methodology

The maritime accident reports from MAIB, ATSB and TSBC were reviewed based on

accidents (collision, grounding, contact, etc.) occurring due to lack of situational awareness.

Then, they were categorised into two parts: those occurring before and after 01/01/2012,

50
when the bridge resource management (BRM) came into force (IMO, 2011), to see whether

the BRM course had any positive effect on the performance of bridge team members

including reactions and decisions. Each report was reviewed and analysed to find the causes

of the accident, which is related to lack of situational awareness. It was identified that some

of the accidents had more than one reason that caused the loss of situational awareness of the

bridge team members. The study focuses not only on the time of the accident to identify the

cause of the lack of SA but also on how the bridge team acted and their conditions up to a

day before the accident to identify if the fatigue played a part in the lack of SA. In addition,

all vessels, which were investigated in this study are above 500 gross tonnages and excluding

the accidents of fishing vessels and pleasure crafts because mostly they require solo

watchkeeping on the bridge.

The study considered the model of situation awareness created by Endsley when she divided

human situation awareness into three levels. Level 1-perception of the element in the current

situation, level 2-comprehension of the current situation and level 3-projection of the future

situation (Endsley, 1995c). Also, the adjustment in this model, which was done by (Chauvin,

Clostermann and Hoc, 2008), clarified level 1 as the available information from the

ARPA/Radar, level 2 as the assessment of the current situation, and level 3 as what the result

will be in the future situation. However, this review was done on the basis that:

• level 1 is the available information from any equipment in the bridge, including

paper chart, notices, and master’s standing order, etc.

• level 2, what is happening in the current situation, and

• level 3 is the prediction of the officer of the watch, or any bridge team member, of

what will happen in the future.

51
5.3. Findings

5.3.1. Overall

The number of maritime accidents reported in MAIB from 2007 to 2011 and 2012 to 2017 is

161 and 186. For the same periods, 59 maritime accident reports from 2007 to 2011 and 53

maritime accident reports from 2012 to 2017 have been investigated by ATSB. The TSCB

recorded 37 maritime accidents from 2007 to 2011 and 79 maritime accidents from 2012 to

2017.Table 5.1 below shows that the number of maritime accidents exceeds the number of

the investigated reports as some of the accidents are registered under several types of

accidents that were found to be challenging to follow and record the actual number and type

of accidents. Additionally, some of these accidents were recorded as fatal occupational

accidents, and some of the accidents were not investigated.

Table 5.1 Number and type of maritime accidents occurred from 2007 to 2017 in different investigation branches
(ATSB, 2017; MAIB, 2017; TSBC, 2017; CHIRP, 2020)

No. of accidents No. of accidents

from 2007-2011 Type of accident from 2012-2017

MAIB ATSB TSBC MAIB ATSB TSBC

13 58 263 Fire/explosion 11 16 204

36 40 390 Grounding/Stranding 30 20 368

24 50 17 Contact 13 17 9

44 22 412 Collision 22 7 489

7 11 N/A Flooding 5 8 N/A

14 7 45 Capsizing/listing 14 5 39

52
In total, more than 200 marine accidents and near-miss reports have been reviewed over the

period of 2007 to 2017, of which 144 of them were from MAIB, 28 of them were from

ASTB and 31 of them were from TSBC. A review of the individual reports indicated that

more than 58% of OOWs or bridge team members failed to fulfil the level 1 situational

awareness, as shown in Figure 5.1.and demonstrated in Table 5.2 Also, it shows that the

number of accidents decreased after 2012 by nearly 50%, highlighting the effectiveness of

BRM for this reduction.

SA 2
42%
SA 1
58%

Figure 5.1 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in marine accidents

Figure 5.2 and Figure 5.3 shown below indicate the percentage of the accidents that occurred

due to lack of communication, wrong/misuse of the available information and manning

decreases after 2012. This indicates that BRM is found to be useful in some of its elements.

However, the interaction between the bridge team member, poor decision-making, and poor

navigational practice causes a significant impact on maritime accidents after 2012, indicating

the gaps with BRM overall.

53
 Other (External
factor, engine Overall percentage of factors that lead to a lack of
failure, etc.)
7% situational awareness before 2012

Manning
4%

Communication
17% Wrong / miss use the
available information
Poor navigation 7%
(Practice/training)
17%
Poor bridge team act
22%
Not following the
COLREG rules
6%
Fatigue
2%
No lookout/ inactive
lookout No information Wrong decision making
7% 2% 9%

Figure 5.2 Overall factors that lead to a lack of situational awareness before 2012

Overall percentage factors that lead to a lack of

situational awareness after 2012
Other (External factor, Communication
6% Wrong / miss use the
engine failure, etc.) available information
12% Manning 5%
2%

Poor navigation
Poor bridge team act
(Practice/training)
21%
18%

Not following the Wrong decision making

No lookout/
COLREG rules 10%
inactive
6% Fatigue lookout
4% No information
14%
2%

Figure 5.3 Overall factors that lead to a lack of situational awareness after 2012.

54
Table 5.2 Overall factors that lead to a lack of situational awareness before and after 2012.

Count (Before 2012) Count (After 2012)

133 Accidents Factor 70 Accidents
SA1 SA2 Total SA1 SA2 Total
11 16 27 Communication 7 1 8
7 4 11 Wrong / miss use the available information 6 0 6
15 21 36 Poor bridge team act 12 15 27
5 9 14 Wrong decision making 7 6 13
4 0 4 No information 3 0 3
9 3 12 No lookout/ inactive lookout 14 4 18
2 2 4 Fatigue 3 2 5
8 2 10 Not following the COLREG rules 5 3 8
21 6 27 Poor navigation (Practice/training) 14 9 23
6 1 7 Manning 2 1 3
7 5 12 Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 7 9 16

5.3.2. Missing SA factors

5.3.2.1. External Communication

Lack of communication always affects team behaviour, particularly in critical situations.

MAIB accident reports reveal the bridge team's communication problems (especially

between master and external pilot) before the accidents occurred. According to Figure 5.4,

the ratio of accidents that occurred due to the lack of communication decreased from 1:4.9

before 2012 to 1:8.7 after 2012. The reduction in accident rates possibly indicates that BRM

improved communication among the team members on the ship bridge but has not

eliminated the communication problem completely. In addition, poor communication,

misunderstanding between two bridge teams or failing to reach an agreement about the

avoidance manoeuvring are factors that affect the situational awareness for the bridge team

members.

55
Some researchers found that forgetfulness and exhaustion influenced efficient

communication adversely (Ziarati, Ziarati and Turan, 2010). Furthermore, the fear of being

blamed by higher-ranked officers, assuming that another team member knows the

communication failures, or doubting if the transferred information is correct or not all

contributed to the maritime accidents considerably (Vrbnjak et al., 2016).

Number of accidents that caused by lack of

external communication in each board
before and after 01/01/2012

8
6
MAIB
4
ATSB
2
TSBC
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 5.4 Number of accidents that caused by poor communication onboard of each ship before and after
01/01/2012.

5.3.2.2.Wrong/miss use of the available information.

With the tremendous amount of information available on the bridge, some accidents are

related to OOWs who were not utilising all the information, were not following the rules or

were using the information only from one or two sources all the time, e.g. the ship’s position.

Even if the OOW have the correct information, he/she misuses it (e.g. change the ship’s

speed or heading) to avoid the accident or got confused between true and relative bearings.

This had occurred regularly and happened depending on the equipment preference by the

OOW. The rate of this type of accidents had decreased from 1:14.9 before 2012 to 1:21.6

after 2012, as shown in Figure 5.5. If the bridge team lacks the knowledge or skills to

understand information or do not know how to respond to them, a maritime accident's risk

increases substantially. These numbers indicate that there is room for improvement through

BRM courses in the provision of training to ratings on the bridge.

56
Figure 5.5 Number of accidents that caused by poor or wrong/miss use of the available information onboard ships
before and after 01/01/2012

5.3.2.3. The information is not there.

Figure 5.6 shows that the accidents that occurred due to unavailable information were few

because of the new technology, and the overall ratio scored 1:41 and 1:43 before and after

2012. However, some of the bridge equipment needs to be upgraded/updated or corrected

from time to time, such as ECDIS, paper chart, etc., to have the correct information available

to use. For example, many ships ran aground due to the OOW losing his situational

awareness because he did not know the object was there. All information must be made

available to the bridge team in time to use it in a correct way to avoid accidents.

57
Figure 5.6 Number of accidents that caused by the missing information onboard ships before and after
01/01/2012.

5.3.2.4.Poor bridge team act (BTA)

Communication is an essential element in bridge resource management, but some other

elements must be addressed. Failing to share information and situational awareness, decision

making, teamwork, including master/ pilot exchange are key underlying reasons for marine

accidents. The lack of communication and situational awareness between the bridge team

increases the potential of misinformation such as the ship’s position speed or heading,

thereby reduces the efficiency/effectiveness of the team to respond timely to avoid accidents.

Even after the STCW forcing the BRM certificate to be held by OOW, some

errors/deficiencies have not been addressed yet. The bridge team is required to use all the

resources, including human resources, that are available on the bridge. In fact, it has been

cited that every year there is an accident caused by a lack of BTA (excluding Australia), as

shown in Figure 5.7. Surprisingly, accidents that occurred because of poor BTA after 2012

remained high, and the ratio is the same (1:4.8) as before 2012. Such a high value shows the

gaps in BRM courses and highlights that an intermediate improvement is required to enhance

bridge team interaction to minimize these accidents.

58
Figure 5.7 Number of accidents that caused by poor BTA onboard ships before and after 01/01/2012.

5.3.2.5. Lookout

For all the accidents that occurred under this category, the OOW was alone on the bridge or

left no-lookout on the bridge, even though rule no. 5 of the COLREG convention states that

all ships should keep a proper lookout out at all times (IMO, 1972). In many MAIB accident

investigation reports, it was mentioned that the bridge teams in vessel A and vessel B were

not aware of each other until just before the collision. Some of the vessels ran aground

because the OOW slept on the bridge or he/she went to his/her room due to fatigue, and there

was no lookout with him, despite the regulatory requirements. This evidence clearly

indicates the scale of the problem with overall minimum manning standards and available

minimum crew on duty. This is detrimental to the team situational awareness on the bridge,

and the accident reports are clear evidence supporting this conclusion. Even with IMO

regulations that required an active lookout, the number of accidents due to inactive lookout

has increased considerably from 1:13.6 before 2012 to 1:7.2 after 2012, as shown in Figure

5.8.

59
Figure 5.8 Number of accidents caused by poor of lookout onboard ships before and after 01/01/2012.

5.3.2.6. Wrong decision-making

All the factors, which were mentioned earlier, contribute to the decision-making and

naturally leads to good/poor navigational practices. When a bridge team member loses his

Level 1 SA or Level 2 SA and is not consulting or sharing his ideas with other team

members, this influences his decision making and leads to a potential accident. The BRM

course covers decision-making, which should be placed in every situation that the bridge

team member faces. However, the number of accidents did not change, and the ratio of the

accidents due to poor decision making increased from 1:11.7 before 2012 to 1:10 after 2012,

as shown in Figure 5.9. Again this indicates the gaps with the BRM course with regards to

decision making.

60
Figure 5.9 Number of accidents that caused by poor of wrong decision making in each board before and after
01/01/2012.

5.3.2.7.Not following the regulations

The review of accident reports indicated that the factors such as misunderstanding, confusion

and not awareness of which rules to follow are highlighted as the main underlying reasons in

each accident of this category. The number of accidents due to not following regulations

decreased after 2012, but the ratio remained exactly the same (1:16), as shown in Figure 5.10

below. The OOWs sometimes get confused about which ship is the give-way vessel and the

stand-on vessel. Is it a crossing situation or overtaking? These kinds of questions, which are

linked to the lack of competence of the crew, affect the crew’ decision making (Abdushkour

et al., 2018). It highlights the importance of following regulations should be an essential part

of the BRM course.

61
Figure 5.10 Number of accidents caused by not following the conventions onboard ships before and after
01/01/2012.

5.3.2.8.Poor navigation (Practice/training)

Safe navigational practice and handling of the ship heavily relies on the standard of

knowledge and skills of the bridge team rather than relying on the sophistication of the

bridge’s equipment. The bridge teams’ knowledge, skills, and proper training are the

contributory factors to ensure the safety of the vessel, crew, cargo and the marine

environment. Taking late actions, not considering the consequences of the action taken, who

has control on the bridge, or not having the proper training are the key factors in this

category. The overall number of accidents that occurred due to poor navigation high, and

there is a slight decrease. However, considering the number of accidents, the ratio after 2012

is 1:5.65 compared to instead 1:6.05 before 2012, as shown in Figure 5.11. This clearly

indicates that ration even increased slightly after 2012, indicating that BRM has not

emphasised the importance of good navigation through teamwork.

62
Figure 5.11 Number of accidents that caused by poor navigation before and after 01/01/2012.

5.3.2.9.Manning/Other

This section includes the bridge's poor manning, which means either the bridge is manned

with fewer people than required, including a solo watchkeeper, or there is nobody on the

bridge. Also, it includes external factors such as wind, anchor dredging, current and waves

effect on the ship and led to an accident without being noticed by the bridge team member or

hard to notice by solo watchkeeper in the bridge. Figure 5.12 shows that the number of

accidents that occurred due to the manning group decreased after 2012 as accidents ratio of

1:43 after 2012 comparing to 1:23 before 2012 were observed. Figure 5.12 also shows that

external factors, which led to the accidents, had increased after 2012 (1:8.1) compared to

before 2012 (1:13.6).

63
Figure 5.12 Number of accidents caused by poor of manning and other external factors onboard each vessel
before and after 01/01/2012.

64
5.3.3. Period before 2012 MAIB

After analysing 104 accident reports, the results indicated that nearly 60% of the OOWs

were unsuccessful in maintaining level 1 SA, and 43% failed to comply with level 2 SA, as

shown in Figure 5.13. Lack of situational awareness occurred due to many factors listed in

Table 5.3 and presented in Figure 5.14.

Figure 5.13 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in MAIB marine accidents before 01/01/2012

Table 5.3 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 10 16 26
Wrong / miss use the available information 7 4 11
The poor bridge team act 11 14 25
Wrong decision making 5 7 12
No information 3 0 3
No lookout/ inactive lookout 6 3 9
Fatigue 1 1 2
Not following the COLREG rules 7 2 9
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 16 5 21

65
Manning 5 1 6
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 3 3 6

Figure 5.14 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012

As shown in Figure 5.14, communication failings between bridge team members, ship to

ship, and ship to shore, along with poor bridge team management and poor navigation

practice, had a significant impact on maritime accidents that occurred before 2012. Near to

60% of these accidents occurred due to failure of the physical activity between the bridge

team or as solo watchkeeper such as communication, teamwork or did proper navigational

watchkeeping. It is not surprising that accidents occurred because of the absence of a bridge

team act, which scored 21% because of BRM or was not mandatory. However, failing to

communicate or not performing proper watchkeeping was evident due to the lack of

fundamental training and education that the seafarers should gain before working onboard

66
vessels. It seems that lack of SA contributed to cognition and decision errors, which lead to

poor risk-taking and ultimately affected the decision making. The reports regularly stated

that the bridge team members needed more training to enhance their communication and

teamwork skills.

5.3.4. Period after 2012 MAIB

This period showed significant improvement in some of the factors that affect SA. The 40

accident reports showed that more OOWs failed to meet their SA level 1 compared to the

period before 2012, as displayed in Figure 5.15.

Figure 5.15 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in MAIB marine accidents after 01/01/2012

On the other hand, the BRM course showed some improvement in individual skills, but it

failed in the main idea, which is to improve the bridge team management, as demonstrated in

Table 5.4 and Figure 5.16.

67
Table 5.4 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 4 1 5
Wrong / miss use the available information 6 0 6
Poor bridge team act 7 8 15
Wrong decision making 3 6 9
No information 2 0 2
No lookout/ inactive lookout 12 4 16
Fatigue 2 2 4
Not following the COLREG rules 3 3 6
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 12 4 16
Manning 2 1 3
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 2 7 9

Figure 5.16 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

68
There is no doubt that bridge teams are facing more issues other than communication. Lack

of sharing the knowledge and SA, absence of teamwork, and misreporting near misses side

by side with applying poor navigational practice are main factors contributing to the loss of

the bridge team’s SA. This made some companies take action by running a BRM course

onboard the ships. Also, they sent their seafarers to nautical institutes to enhance their skills.

5.3.5. Period before 2012 ATSB

A total of 19 accident reports showed that more than 60% of the marine accidents occurred

due to low SA level 1, and 37% failed to obtain SA level 2, as presented in Figure 5.17.

Figure 5.17 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in ATSB marine accidents before 01/01/2012

This percentage illustrates that OOWs failed to gather all useful resources available at the

time of the accidents, as displayed in Table 5.5 and Figure 5.18.

69
Table 5.5 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 1 0 1
Wrong / miss use the available information 0 0 0
Poor bridge team act 2 5 7
Wrong decision making 0 1 1
No information 0 0 0
No lookout/ inactive lookout 3 0 3
Fatigue 1 1 2
Not following the COLREG rules 1 0 1
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 2 0 2
Manning 0 0 0
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 2 2 4

Figure 5.18 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012.

70
As it is clear from the figures, the poor of BTM/BRM was the main cause of the maritime

accidents in Australia, which were identified almost in each report and another factor.

5.3.6. Period after 2012 ATSB

Only nine accident reports were linked to the SA issues after 2012. The analysis of those

nine reports showed that nearly 70% of the maritime accidents happened due to lack of level

1 SA, and about 33% of the accidents occurred due to lack of level 2 of SA, as shown in

Figure 5.19. All the bridge activities were the main causes of the accidents that include lack

of BTM/BRM, inactive lookout and incapable of executing good navigational practices, as

presented in Table 5.6 and Figure 5.20.

Figure 5.19 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in ATSB marine accidents after 01/01/2012

71
Table 5.6 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 0 0 0
Wrong / miss use the available information 0 0 0
The poor bridge team act 1 1 2
Wrong decision making 0 0 0
No information 0 0 0
No lookout/ inactive lookout 2 0 2
Fatigue 0 0 0
Not following the COLREG rules 0 0 0
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 0 2 2
Manning 0 0 0
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 3 0 3

Figure 5.20 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

72
5.3.7. Period before 2012 TSBC

Ten accident reports show that most of the marine accidents investigated by the Canadian

board took place because of the human element. For 60% of the accidents, OOWs were

unsuccessful in gaining level 1 SA, while 40% failed to obtain level 2 SA, as shown in

Figure 5.21.

Figure 5.21 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in TSBC marine accidents before 01/01/2012

Poor work practice as a team and poor use of all resources on the bridge, and a lack of

navigational practices and training were the major factors contributing to the absence of SA.

Nearly 40% of the accidents occurred due to different reasons, as displayed in Figure 5.22

and Table 5.7.

73
Table 5.7 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 0 0 0
Wrong / miss use the available information 0 0 0
Poor bridge team act 2 2 4
Wrong decision making 0 1 1
No information 1 0 1
No lookout/ inactive lookout 0 0 0
Fatigue 0 0 0
Not following the COLREG rules 0 0 0
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 3 1 4
Manning 1 0 1
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 2 0 2

Figure 5.22 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness before 01/01/2012.

74
5.3.8. Period after 2012 TSBC

In this period, 21 accident reports were analysed; the OOWs failed to gain level 1 SA and

Level 2 SA by 57% and 43%, respectively, as shown in Figure 5.23. The prime cause of

these accidents was the bridge performance; it was observed that BTM/BRM was inefficient

with 34% and been reported almost in half of the accident cases. This issue affects directly

the other aspects found in Table 5.8 and presented in Figure 5.24.

Figure 5.23 Percentage of failure in situational awareness levels in TSBC marine accidents after 01/01/2012

75
Table 5.8 Factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

Factor Count
SA1 SA2 Total
Communication 3 0 3
Wrong / miss use the available information 0 0 0
Poor bridge team act 4 6 10
Wrong decision making 4 0 4
No information 1 0 1
No lookout/ inactive lookout 0 0 0
Fatigue 1 0 1
Not following the COLREG rules 2 0 2
Poor navigation (Practice/training) 2 3 5
Manning 0 0 0
Other (External factor, engine failure, etc.) 2 2 4

Figure 5.24 Percentage of factors that lead to lack of situational awareness after 01/01/2012.

76
5.4. Conclusion

The human element was a major factor influencing ship accidents which have been

reviewed, which; the main two components are situational awareness and assessment (SA)

and teamwork. The misunderstanding of the situation, lack of knowledge about the

navigational equipment's capabilities, and the misuse of it increased the risk of accidents.

Moreover, poor application of bridge team management (BTM) increased this risk to a

higher level.

As it is clearly presented above, most OOWs are not achieving level 1 SA because they rely

on one or two navigational equipment rather than utilising all the equipment on the bridge to

create Situational Awareness. Also, the benefits of using another opinion to improve the

decision have not been used regularly. Surprisingly, many accidents had occurred because of

a lack of BTM/BRM even after the course has come into force. The reason could be that

because of other team members such as cadets, wheelmen, lookouts, and pilots, who do not

have to attend the BRM course, it is mandatory for only the OOWs and masters. Besides, the

officer does not report any useful information due to the assumption that another member

knows about it or he/she is afraid that this information does not belong to the situation or is

wrong or afraid of another team member's reaction. Many of these accidents could be

eliminated, and level 3 of SA can be maintained if the OOWs used all the available resources

along with their experience. Moreover, accidents are related to lack of bridge team

management, including different factors such as communication, decision-making,

leadership and teamwork.

In the end, more accidents will continue to occur in the future if the same circumstances still

exist. Therefore, those circumstances should be reviewed and addressed to maintain the

highest level of Situational Awareness.

77
6. Situation Awareness of Crew Members: Results of the
questionnaire-based study among seafarers

6.1. Chapter Overview

The situational awareness assessment is used in this study to measure the understanding of

the bridge team members (crew) about the bridge resource management elements on the

ship's bridge. This assessment took place by distributing a specifically designed

questionnaire among the seafarers who work on the bridge or are related to bridge activities.

The questionnaire's main concept was captured, and the gaps regarding teamwork and

situational awareness were identified and analysed.

6.2. Introduction

The majority of seafarers think that the bridge team is made up only of masters and officers;

this is not true. The bridge team includes every person with a duty on the bridge, even if it is

limited by time or place, such as pilots and lookouts. The bridge resource management

(BRM) course is conducted for seafarers who hold master and officer certificates. Most of

the questions in this questionnaire reflect on ship accidents that involve bridge team

activities.

6.3. Situational awareness for crew member questionnaire development

The questionnaire was developed based on the review of maritime accidents, which was

undertaken in chapter 5. The questionnaire was established by focusing on the bridge team

acts (BTA), which are related to the maritime accidents directly or indirectly, such as the

communication, teamwork, situational awareness, etc., and feedback by the bridge team

towards enhancing the navigational safety issues. Each maritime accident/group of accidents,

which raised a question or statement regarding BTA, was covered to examine the

78
navigational safety culture in the bridge in detail. Based on the Likert Scale (6 points), each

statement and question in the questionnaire aims to collect responses from seafarers and

pilots in the form of agreement levels, which are (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor

disagree, disagree, strongly disagree, and I do not know). For the analysis, the Likert scale

was converted to the numerical values, which has a range from 6 (strongly agree) to 1

(strongly disagree. Zero value is assigned to for (I do not know) responses.

After the questionnaire was completed, it was checked by two experts for the final approval

for distribution through an anonymous link by using Qualtrics. The link was sent to shipping

companies to get feedback from their seafarers.

6.4. Situational awareness assessment questionnaire data collection

The questionnaire was distributed by using an anonymous link to the participants. It targets

all seafarers who are involved in ship bridge activities. It was also distributed among the

cadets, who have been onboard ships, and lecturers of maritime institutions. One hundred

and fifty-eight completed questionnaires were collected. The questionnaire contained five

domains (Bridge Resource Management, Teamwork, Navigational safety, Involvement and

Situation Awareness) in addition to the demographic domain with a total of forty-three

questions. The "Do not Know" answers in this questionnaire are considered as missing data

for the analysis.

6.4.1. Demographic

The beginning of the questionnaire aimed to capture the demographics of all participants

who took part in the questionnaire. All participants are seafarers from different regions and

held different qualification. One hundred fifty-five of them were related to bridge activity,

and the remaining three participants were marine engineers with different positions.

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6.4.1.1. Age and Gender

All participants who took part in this survey are male. Participants' ages varied between 18

and 64, and the age range was divided into six categories (there is no participant over 65

years old), as shown in Figure 6.1. The largest age group among participants is 25-34

(46.2%) followed by 35-44 (24.68%) and 45-54 (15.82%). The 18-24 age group had only

8.86% who are possibly not even aware of BRM.

Figure 6.1 Age range of all participants

80
6.4.1.2. Rank

All seafarers who took part in this survey are related to the bridge team with different

positions. The range of positions can be divided into two groups; The first group, The Bridge

Team, include the master, the officer of the watch (OOW), the lookout, the wheelman

(helmsman) and the deck cadet. Moreover, the survey recorded participants from the second

group, which is from outside the bridge, but they are connected to the bridge operation such

as the pilot (tug master and marine engineers named as other) for the purpose of the analyses.

Marine engineers take a course similar to Bridge Resource Management which is called

Engine Resource Management. Reviewing the responses from the marine engineers will

provide the opportunity to identify any potential gaps for a wide range of ranks, which are

linked to the bridge teamwork and communications.

Figure 6.2 shows that more than 140 participants are working in the same environment,

which is the bridge operation group. The senior and the junior parties, which include (master

and OOWs) make up 58.5% of the participants.

81
Figure 6.2 Range of positions for all participants

82
6.4.1.3. Sea-time Experience

It is helpful to know if the experience can affect the seafarer's judgment. The distribution of

sea-time experience is presented in Figure 6.3. Over 50% of the participants have a sea-time

experience for more than eight years. On the other hand, the fresh minds or just graduated

from nautical colleges got the lower score which is only 7%. The benefit of getting feedback

from seafarers with a wide range of sea-time experience is to determine whether the

knowledge gained in the college is equal to the experience that seafarers can gain over the

years.

Figure 6.3 Range of sea-time experience for all participants

83
6.4.1.4. Nationalities

In total, seafarers from 15 nationalities participated in the questionnaire. The majority of the

participants were from India with 31%, followed by Saudi nationals with 25%, Filipino

14.5% and Russian 7.6%, as shown in Figure 6.4. There are further six nationalities grouped

in the other category due to small size and included Pakistani, Yemeni, Georgian, Ukrainian,

Bulgarian and Montenegro) seafarers.

Figure 6.4 Distribution of nationalities

84
6.4.2. Factor analysis

• Pre-analysis

A total of 158 valid responses were collected through the questionnaire (all do not know, and

missing data are excluded in this analysis). The analysis has been tested through the SPSS

tool using KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) test (Kaiser, 1970; Hollenbeck, 1972) to measure the

adequacy of the sample. Table 6.1 below shows that KMO measurement was found as 0.727,

which is considered between 'meritorious and middling' according to the KMO assessment

category proposed by (Kaiser and Rice, 1974). In addition, Barlett's Test of Sphericity

value was also found significant (0.000), which also shows there are correlations

between the questions.

Table 6.1 KMO and Barlett's test

KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .727

Approx. Chi-Square 3563.835

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df 903

Sig. .000

The factor analysis is performed by carrying out an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The

analysis shows the questionnaire's validity by exploiting principal axis factoring and the

rotation factor of the SPSS (Tinsley and Tinsley, 1987). Table 6.2 below demonstrates the

five components (based on the fixed number of values), which were obtained from the data

collected for the analysis, which shows a total of 46.76% variance. (Zwick and Velicer,

1986) suggested that each factor must contain three loadings as a minimum to run the

analysis. All questions should have a correlation coefficient of more than 0.3, which is

85
considered that there is sufficient correlation within the component (Tabachnick and Fidell,

2014). As a result, the five domains were taken from the data, as presented in Table 6.3. The

factor analysis has been processed through the following steps:

• Main analysis

According to (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2014) suggestions, the correlation coefficients must be

above 0.3, so the correlation matrix could be created. Otherwise, the factor analysis could

not be found if it is less than 0.3.

Table 6.2 exploratory factor analysis for the fixed number of values and percentage of variance

Total Variance Explained

Extraction Sums of Squared
Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings
Loadings
Component

Cumulative %

Cumulative %
% of variance

% of variance
Total

Total

1 9.139 21.254 21.254 4.708 10.948 10.948

2 3.743 8.706 29.959 4.706 10.944 21.891
3 2.820 6.557 36.516 3.918 9.111 31.002
4 2.446 5.687 42.204 3.662 8.515 39.518
5 1.962 4.563 46.767 3.117 7.249 46.767

Table 6.3 exploratory factor analysis pattern matrix factor loadings

Questions 1 2 3 4 5
Q21 .643
Q11 .611
Q12 .598
Q22 .596
Q43 .589
Q17 .578

86
Q5 .523
Q6 .482
Q42 .391
Q35 .726
Q20 .700
Q36 .692
Q4 .631
Q2 .625
Q31 .567
Q39 .551
Q19 .527

Q3. .487

Q30 .472

Q1 .309
Q23 .307
Q28 .657

Q25 .336

Q29 .634

Q34 .602
Q14 .587

Q37 .552

Q26 .505

Q32 .451

Q7 .425

Q13 .901
Q9 .889
Q8 .860

Q16 .540

Q27 -.331

Q10 -.343
Q33 .576

87
Q40 .552
Q18 .527

Q41 .472

Q38 .436
Q24 .409

Q15 .382

Table 6.4 below is designed to collocate all domains, factor, questions and its loading result.

The grouping is based on the component matrix, which resulted from the factor analysis test

above. Each component groups contain all questions that scored a loading of 0.3 or more.

Table 6.4 Factor Loadings

Domains Factors Questions Loading

Q21 I can ask other bridge team member
1 .643
when I doubted.
Q11 Bridge members should question a
1 higher rank officer's/pilot's decision not even .611
when safety is affected

Q12 Whenever I see a navigational warning,

1 .598
I always report it.

Safe bridge
Q22 Asking for assistance can make me
environment and 1 .596
look competent.
teamwork
Q43 I know that fatigue can affect my
1 .589
situational awareness in the bridge.
Q17 I get the benefit of other bridge
1 member's experience to make a safe and .578
effective decision.
Q5 I always ask questions if I do not
1 understand or unsure about any information .523
or instructions were given to me.

88
 Q6 I can report anything related to safe
1 navigation without fearing from the .482
consequences, especially at night.
Q42 Following the COLREGs can improve
1 .391
my situational awareness.
Q35 Mistakes are corrected without
2 punishment and treated as a learning .726
opportunity
Q20 I found a good atmosphere of teamwork
2 .700
in the bridge.
Q36 Watch hand-overs are thorough and not
2 .692
hurried.
Q4 Operational values, objectives and
2 .631
targets are effectively communicated.
Q2 There is a good communication
2 .625
environment in the bridge.
Q31 I receive feedback about my
2 .567
Communication compliance with the safety of navigation.
Q39 There is sufficient time allocated for the
2 .551
hand-overs when joining the ship
Q19 There is a briefing between the bridge
2 .527
team before the watch started.
Q3 There is no difficulty in using English as
2 .487
a communication language.
Q30 Other bridge members encourage me to
2 .472
report unsafe events.
Q1 Language/dialect related issues amongst
2 .309
bridge members are not a threat to safety.
Q23 There is a collaboration between bridge
2 .307
team members to ensure safe navigation.
Q28 I am confident that I can operate the
3 navigational equipment within my area of .657
Bridgework
responsibility safely
3 Q25 A good leadership can improve .336

89
 teamwork.
Q29 I fully understand my responsibilities
3 .634
for my duty in the bridge.
Q34 I have sufficient control of my work to
3 .602
ensure it is always completed safely.
Q14 I use all resources that available in the
3 .587
bridge to ensure safe passage.
Q37 I can easily maintain my situational
3 .552
awareness during my watch
Q26 I found no difficulty in using
3 navigational equipment to ensure safe .505
passage.

Q32 Bridge members are encouraged to

3 .451
improve navigational safety.

Q7 I can establish/ understand any

3 communication between my vessel and .425
others.
Q13 I found that the BRM course improved
4 .901
my skills.
Q9 The course is helping me to cooperate
4 .889
with bridge members.
Bridge resource Q8 I found the BRM course useful for each
4 .860
management bridge members
Q16 I do a risk assessment when the ship
4 .540
passes through heavy traffic areas
Q27 I rely on electronic navigation
4 -.331
equipment for a safe passage.
Q10 It is better to conduct a monthly
5 -.343
meeting for bridge team members.
Q33 I am consulted about and invited to get
Safety awareness 5 involved in changes that affect teamwork in .576
the bridge.
Q40 We are sharing the same situational
5 .552
awareness in the bridge.

90
 Q18 I found that maritime institutions are
5 .527
providing different content of BRM course.
Q41 I can easily predict what will happen
5 .472
during my watch.
Q38 A good manning in the bridge can
5 .436
improve situational awareness.
Q24 I can correct the information for
5 another bridge team member even if he/she .409
higher ranks than me.
Q15 I can deal with any emergency
5 .382
navigational situation by myself.

• Post analysis check

The reliability analysis has been done by using Cronbach's alpha statistics tool (Cronbach,

1951). The reliability test score is determined in Table 6-5. Alpha 0.6789, which shows good

reliability according to (Nunnally, 1978), which specified that the alpha value must be above

0.6 (Achour, 2017). While (Hair et al., 1998) stated that the reliability analysis score must be

over 0.7 to show a high internal consistency (Ghonaim, 2020). Table 6-5 below shows the

Cronbach's Alpha value for each domain. By looking at the safety awareness domain, which

is scored less than the accepted score, but near to the acceptable score, which can be adjusted

in future work by conducting a pilot study for all domains and enhancing it if necessary

before continuing this study to achieve a higher reliability score than what we have.

However, the overall reliability score for this study within the acceptable score. Therefore,

appropriate reliability for situational awareness for crew member questionnaire has acquire

after conducting the EFA.

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Table 6.5 Reliability Scales

Domains Cronbach's Alpha value

Safe bridge environment and teamwork 0.634
Communication 0.811
Bridgework 0.694
Bridge resource management 0.68
Safety awareness 0.58
Total score 0.6798

6.4.3. Results for Situational Awareness domain

In total, 158 participants had filled the questionnaire without missing data in each domain.

All the analyses were performed using the SPSS tool. The results are presented in the tables

from 6-8 to 6-12, including the question, mean, standard deviation (Std. Dev) and the

agreement score in percentage for each domain. All the values under the domain score

section are categorised using a colour code. The representation of the colour coding has been

used before as a safety climate score which was suggested by (Arslan, 2018).

Table 6-6 and Table 6-7 show that the scores from 90% to 100% are represented by the dark

green colour, which means no action is required to improve it and highlighted the 'strongly

agree' statement. The score from 80% to 90% is represented by the light green colour, which

indicates slight improvement is required and highlights the 'agree’ statement. The score from

70% to 80%, represented by the yellow colour, indicates medium improvement is required to

achieve the desired level of safety and highlights the ‘agree’ statement as well. However, the

red colour, which represents the scores below 70%, means a significant improvement is

required; depending on the mean score red colour represents both ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly

disagree’ statements. The mean score in percentage is calculated using equation 1 below.

Then, the mean score will be shown next to each question in each domain in the following

tables.

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 Mean−1
score in percentage (%) = 5−1
∗ 100 (equation 1)

the mean limit was calculated using equation 2 below:

(5-1)/5= 0.833 (equation 2)

Table 6.6 Mean score interpretation.

Mean Score Results

100 to 90 Very Good
90 to 80 Good
80 to 70 Average
Below 70 Very poor

Table 6.7 Mean limit interpretation.

Agreement degree Mean limits Colour code

I do not know Zero (Missing value)
Strongly Disagree 1 –1.833
Disagree 1.83 – 2.666 <70%

Neither agree nor disagree 2.666 – 3.499

3.499 – 4.332 70% - 80%

Agree

4.332 – 5.156 80% - 90%

Strongly Agree 5.156 – 6 >90%

6.4.3.1. Safe bridge environment and teamwork

The safe bridge environment and teamwork domain consist of nine statements, which has a

mean of 4.36, and the agreement score is 83.97%. This means a slight room for improvement

is required. Table 6.8 shows that some of the statements which are not in green colour need

93
medium improvement. The statement "Asking for assistance can make me look competent”

got the lowest score in this domain.

Statement Q22 detects a problem among the seafarers, as almost 20% of the participants

agreed that asking for help makes them look unprofessional and unfit to be suitable for their

duty. Most of the seafarers don’t ask for assistance because they think that asking any

question regarding work, knowledge, or information will make them incompetent for their

position. Some masters stated that in their standing order, onboard the ship, ask if you are in

doubt. This statement clarifies that whatever is their rank, age, and experience at sea, they

should ask for help/clarification if they needed to remove the ambiguity. Therefore, the

seafarers must enhance their communication, teamwork, and asking for help by attending a

suitable course, such as the new BRM course, which its effectiveness shows clearly in

chapter 8.

Table 6.8 Safe bridge environment and teamwork Domain

Agreement score
Statements Mean Stan Dev.
%
Q21 I can ask other bridge team member when
4.42 0.545 85.5
I doubted.
Q11 Bridge members should question a higher
rank officer's/ pilot’s decision not even when 4.34 1.02 83.5
safety is affected
Q12 Whenever I see a navigational warning, I
4.49 0.639 87.25
always report it.
Q22 Asking for assistance can make me look
3.93 0.978 73.25
competent.
Q43 I know that fatigue can affect my
4.41 0.845 85.25
situational awareness in the bridge.
Q17 I get the benefit of other bridge member’s
experience to make a safe and effective 4.25 0.781 81.25
decision.

94
 Q5 I always ask questions if I do not
understand or unsure about any information or 4.50 0.665 87.5
instructions were given to me.
Q6 I can report anything related to safe
navigation without fearing from the 4.41 0.740 85.25
consequences, especially at night.
Q42 Following the COLREGs can improve my
4.48 0.594 87.0
situational awareness.

Total Domain 4.36 0.756 83.97

6.4.3.2. Communication domain

The communication domain contains twelve statements, and the mean score for this domain

is 3.87, and the agreement score is 71.77%. This means there is major room for improvement

as far as the communication domain is concerned. Thus, a new BRM course for all seafarers,

including ratings, is recommended to fill this gap. According to Table 6.9, most of the

statements require some improvement to achieve a higher safety barrier with regards to

communication. The statements “Q31-I received feedback about my compliance to the safety

of navigation, Q39-there is sufficient time allocated for the hand-over when joining the ship,

and Q1-Language/dialect related issues amongst bridge members are not a threat to safety”

have the lowest scores, which are 66.5%, 64.75% and 40% respectively.

Communication is one of the most important performance indicators of bridge resource

management. Therefore, all the crew onboard the ship should have the ability to speak and

understand the English maritime language, and more than 80% of the participants agreed to

this statement. However, more than 50% of the participants agreed that communication

language between bridge members is not a threat to safety, while almost 40% thought it is.

The ship might contain more than three nationalities onboard ship, and their first language is

not English. Naturally, this leads to the use of their mother tongue as a communication

95
language, which will create a major barrier on the bridge where they have to use the ship's

official communication language to perform the navigational duties. Many maritime

accidents were reported due to language problems, which prevented accurate or timely

communication. On the other hand, many accidents were prevented due to the excellent

communication among the bridge team made up of the same nationality. However, the same

advantage turned to a disadvantage and led to accidents when the bridge team communicate

in the national language when the pilot from different nationality is on the bridge.

Q39 statement “There is sufficient time allocated for the hand-overs when joining the ship”

scores 64.75%, which clearly indicates that the time allocated for the crew change-over

(hand-over/take-over joining/leaving the ship) sometimes is not enough due to problems with

the flight arrangement for the hand-over crew or the time allocated for the ship when she is

at berth. This leads to a lack of shared situational awareness and a lack of familiarity that

lead to safety barrier deficiencies and communication problems.

Q31, which has a score of 66.5%, clearly shows that the crew do not receive any or proper

feedback or comment about their compliance with the navigation safety then the opportunity

of learning from the mistakes is missed significantly. This does not help to enhance

seafarers’ skills and experience with regards to not only communication but also the

individual and organisational safety culture. It is highly recommended to ensure a good

environment of communication between crew, bridge team to avoid any miscommunication

during the ship navigations. This can be enhanced through training and improved company

procedures as well as the commitment of the management.

96
Table 6.9 Communication Domain

Stan Agreement score

Statements Mean
Dev. %
Q35 Mistakes are corrected without punishment
3.94 1.05 73.5
and treated as a learning opportunity
Q20 I found a good atmosphere of teamwork in
4.13 0.73 78.25
the bridge.
Q36 Watch hand-overs are thorough and not
4.06 0.992 76.5
hurried.
Q4 Operational values, objectives and targets are
4.09 0.626 77.25
effectively communicated.
Q2 There is a good communication environment
4.26 0.759 81.5
in the bridge.
Q31 I receive feedback about my compliance to
3.66 1.06 66.5
the safety of navigation.
Q39 There is sufficient time allocated for the
3.59 0.978 64.75
hand-overs when joining the ship
Q19 There is a briefing between the bridge team
3.92 1.123 73
before the watch started.
Q3 There is no difficulty in using English as a
4.16 0.85 79
communication language.
Q30 Other bridge members encourage me to
3.93 1.029 73.25
report unsafe events.
Q1 Language/dialect related issues amongst
2.6 1.32 40.00
bridge members are not a threat to safety.
Q23 There is a collaboration between bridge team
4.11 0.907 77.75
members to ensure safe navigation.

Total Domain 3.87 0.952 71.77

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6.4.3.3. Bridgework Domain

The Bridgework domain contains nine statements, and the mean score for this domain is

4.33, while the agreement score is 83.28%. According to Table 6.10, most of the statements

do not require any major improvement except the statements Q26 and Q37. The statements

“I found no difficulty of using navigational equipment to ensure safe passage and I can

easily maintain my situational awareness during my watch” got the lowest scores in this

domain.

According to the responses, some of the bridge team members (ratings and cadets) are not

allowed to deal with the bridge navigational equipment unless if the captain or OOW say so.

In the Author’s opinion, it works against rule 5 of the Convention on the International

Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs) (IMO, 1972). COLREG rule

5 states, “every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as

well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so

as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision”, and this includes the

bridge navigational equipment such as RADAR, ARPA and AIS.

Statement Q37 “I can easily maintain my situational awareness during my watch”, which

scored nearly 80%, shows that more than 50 % of the participants agreed to this statement.

On the other hand, around 13% of the participants, most of them are ratings, fluctuated

between neither agree nor disagree and do not know responses. This can explain that some of

the seafarers do not know the meaning of SA or how they can build and maintain their SA

during the watch with the help of alternative information resources that are available on the

bridge. Moreover, the statements Q28, Q34 and Q7, which are scored slightly more than

80%, can confirm that there is a hesitation with regards to the bridgework, which can cause a

deficiency in the bridge team act and lead to a maritime accident.

98
Table 6.10 Bridgework Domain

Agreement score
Statements Mean Stan Dev.
%
Q28 I am confident that I can operate the
navigational equipment within my area of 4.23 0.697 80.75
responsibility safely.
Q25 A good leadership can improve the
4.71 0.556 92.75
teamwork.
Q29 I fully understand my responsibilities for
4.54 0.634 88.5
my duty in the bridge.
Q34 I have sufficient control of my work to
4.23 0.750 80.75
ensure it is always completed safely.
Q14 I use all resources that available in the
4.54 0.583 88.5
bridge to ensure safe passage.
Q37 I can easily maintain my situational
4.19 0.904 79.75
awareness during my watch
Q26 I found no difficulty of using navigational
4.03 0.906 75.75
equipment to ensure safe passage.

Q32 Bridge members are encouraged to

4.30 0.615 82.5
improve navigational safety.
Q7 I can establish/ understand any
4.21 0.814 80.25
communication between my vessel and others.

Total Domain 4.33 0.718 83.28

6.4.3.4. Bridge Resource Management

The Bridge Resource Management domain contains five statements, and the mean score for

the domain is 3.59, while the agreement score is 64.75%. This means significant

improvement is required to achieve the required level of safety. The low score for this

domain was expected due to the varied range of ranks who participated in this questionnaire,

whereas the ratings, cadets and some pilots are not required to take the BRM course by

STCW. Because it is not mandatory for their job specification or they are not qualified to

99
take the course as per their rank description, shipping companies do not send their ratings to

the BRM course. In the Author’s opinion, this is a major weakness in current BRM

requirements as the only officers within the bridge team have the BRM certificates. This

means the bridge team as a whole do not have the shared situational awareness and ratings

do not know how they can support the bridge team in case of emergency.

According to Table 6.11, all the statements require more attention to achieve a higher safety

level except the statement Q16, “I do a risk assessment when the ship passes through heavy

traffic areas”.

There are no surprises with the responses regarding this domain as most of the responses

answered with ‘I do not know and ’neither agree nor disagree’, ‘resources are there but can’t

utilise it’ sectors exceed 33% of the participants’ responses for the statements Q13, Q9 and

Q8. The bridge resource management, as mentioned earlier, is a course designed for officers

of the watch, masters and pilots. However, a wide range of feedback came from cadets, ABs

and OSs, who stated that they had no clue about this course. This issue was clearly

identified, and the Author proposed a solution by developing a new BRM course suitable for

all seafarers, as presented in chapter 7.

Regarding Q27, which scored 53.25%, most of the responses were in disagreement as more

than 60% of the participants refused to rely on navigational equipment only to ensure a safe

passage.

This domain was designed to inquire about the participants’ opinion about the benefits of the

BRM course for all bridge team members. However, the responses clarify that there is a

missing link between the seafarers who took the course and those who have not. More details

will be given in the next section.

100
Regarding Q27, which scored 53.25%, the majority of the responses were in disagreement as

more than 60% of the participants refuse to rely on navigational equipment only to ensure a

safe passage.

This domain was designed to inquire about the participants’ opinion about the benefits of the

BRM course for all bridge team members. However, the responses clarify that there is a

missing link between the seafarers who took the course and those who have not. More details

will be given in the next section.

Table 6.11 Bridge Resource Management Domain

Agreement score
Statements Mean Stan Dev.
%
Q13 I found that the BRM course improved my
3.51 1.505 62.75
skills.
Q9 The course is helping me to cooperate with
3.70 1.45 67.5
bridge members.
Q8 I found the BRM course useful for each
3.72 1.42 68
bridge members
Q16 I do a risk assessment when the ship
3.89 1.14 72.25
passes through heavy traffic areas
Q27 I rely on electronic navigation equipment
3.13 1.20 53.25
for a safe passage.

Total Domain 3.59 1.343 64.75

6.4.3.5. Safety Awareness

The Safety Awareness domain contains eight statements, and the mean score for this domain

is 3.65, while the agreement score is 66.34% which is required significant improvement to

achieve the level of safety culture. According to Table 6.12, all of the statements require

101
more attention to achieve a higher safety level except the statement Q38, “A good manning

in the bridge can improve the situational awareness”.

The statements of this domain have fluctuated between the disagreement and agreement

response. The statement Q18, “I found that maritime institutions are providing different

contents of BRM course", got the lowest score in this domain which is 39.5%, where many

seafarers who took the BRM course will be returning back to a maritime institution after five

years to take the course again to renew his certificate, by that time the seafarer will not

remember what the course contents were unless they kept the notes of the previous course.

The majority of the responses from the participants are either ‘Do not know or neither agree

nor disagree’ with 30.5% and 22%, respectively. These answers are logical as the ratings do

not know anything about BRM as they are not required to attend, and the officers who took

the course only once would not know anything different. This clearly amplifies the problem,

how can they be part of the team if they do not know what to do as part of a team?

The statement Q41, “I can easily predict what will happen during my watch”, scored 57%.

This indicates that many OOWs and other bridge team members think that reaching level 3

of situational awareness is difficult than it seems. However, if they share their situational

awareness and make the required information available, they can easily predict the situation

during their watch. For Statement Q15, “I can deal with any emergency navigational

situation by myself”, which scored 57% in this domain. More than half of the participants

believe that dealing with emergency situations should be placed and combined with

teamwork. The survey score was as predicted because it is harder to deal with any

emergency navigational situation by only the master or OOW while maintaining full

situational awareness during the disaster. This is a clear indication that team situational

awareness should be the ultimate goal involving every single human and equipment

resources.

102
As the results of this domain show, many seafarers do not believe the safety performance

onboard the ship is growing by attending the BRM course. Moreover, this questionnaire's

distribution shows that ratings are not given the opportunity to enhance their safety a team

culture compared to captains and OOWs. This is reflected by the statements Q33 and Q40,

which score slightly above 70%. More details will be given in the next section.

Table 6.12 Safety Awareness Domain

Agreement score
Statements Mean Stan Dev.
%
Q10 It is better to conduct a monthly meeting
3.99 0.99 74.75
for bridge team members.
Q33 I am consulted about, and invited to get
involved in changes that affect teamwork in the 3.81 1.08 70.25
bridge.
Q40 We are sharing the same situational
3.82 1.02 70.5
awareness in the bridge.
Q18 I found that maritime institutions are
2.58 1.73 39.5
providing different content of BRM course.
Q41 I can easily predict what will happen
3.28 1.2 57
during my watch.
Q38 A good manning in the bridge can
4.48 0.64 87
improve situational awareness.
Q24 I can correct the information for another
bridge team member even if he/she higher 3.99 0.814 74.75
ranks than me.
Q15 I can deal with any emergency
3.28 1.2 57
navigational situation by myself.

Total Domain 3.65 1.084 66.34

103
6.4.4. Statistical Results

Differences between group means were examined and tested for statistical significance by

using the one-way ANOVA test. This test is applied to identify statistical differences

between different groups such as age, rank etc. The result (p-value) must be equal to or

above 0.05 for the question; if not, that means a significant impact between the different

groups responded to that question which coloured by red. All the questions, which score a p

less than 0.05, will be highlighted and analysed by the colour code mentioned earlier.

6.4.4.1. Effect of Age

The questions that are emphasised in red colour, as shown in Table 6.13, represents that

there is a significant statistical difference between the age groups and their response in the

questionnaire.

Table 6.13 ANOVA on Age (significant interactions, p-value < 0.05, are shown in red)

p p p p p
Var Var Var Var Var
value value value value value
Q1 0.028 Q10 0.059 Q19 0.234 Q28 0.003 Q37 0.539
Q2 0.058 Q11 0.089 Q20 0.180 Q29 0.615 Q38 0.267
Q3 0.153 Q12 0.000 Q21 0.681 Q30 0.165 Q39 0.619
Q4 0.439 Q13 0.054 Q22 0.531 Q31 0.659 Q40 0.140
Q5 0.401 Q14 0.650 Q23 0.004 Q32 0.003 Q41 0.348
Q6 0.296 Q15 0.256 Q24 0.497 Q33 0.085 Q42 0.629
Q7 0.372 Q16 0.097 Q25 0.061 Q34 0.469 Q43 0.089
Q8 0.410 Q17 0.000 Q26 0.013 Q35 0.199
Q9 0.028 Q18 0.183 Q27 0.009 Q36 0.050

Because of the difference in sample size and non-homogeneous variances, Hochberg’s GT2

and Games-Howell post hoc tests were conducted on the statistically significant variables

only (the red colour cells given in the table above).

104
Table 6.14 Summary of the findings of post hoc tests for the interaction of Ages.

18- 25- 35- 45- 55-

Q Statement
24 34 44 54 64
Language/dialect related issues amongst bridge
1 50 34.5 34.5 56 50
members are not a threat to safety.
The course is helping me to cooperate with
9 42.8 65.4 71.7 81 67.8
bridge members.
Whenever I see a navigational warning, I
12 66 88.6 92.3 86 89.2
always report it.
I get the benefit of other bridge member’s
17 experience to make a safe and effective 57.1 80.8 87.8 84 89
decision.
There is a collaboration between bridge team
23 57.1 79.4 81.4 75 89.2
members to ensure safe navigation
I found no difficulty of using navigational
26 60.7 76.7 76.9 74 96.4
equipment to ensure safe passage.
I rely on electronic navigation equipment for a
27 73.2 48.9 46.7 60 71.4
safe passage.
I am confident that I can operate the
28 navigational equipment within my area of 78.5 82.5 73 85 96.4
responsibility safely.
Bridge members are encouraged to improve
32 71.4 81.1 85.8 84 96.4
navigational safety.

Table 6.14 above presents the variance between age groups based on the ANOVA one-way

analysis test. The table above shows that younger aged (18-24) seafarers have significantly

lower average scores on collaborating with other bridge team members in this study. They

disagree with the given statements more than other age groups.

The younger age group thinks that asking questions or asking for help at the beginning of

their carer can make them look incompetent in their duties. Also, when they encounter any

difficulty in using the bridge equipment, they try to find a way to learn how to use the

105
equipment, e.g. look over the manual, rather than asking other bridge members, which would

save them much time.

The middle age groups (25-54) disagree with relying on navigational equipment only to

ensure a safe passage which is opposite to the opinion of other groups. From this statement,

we can highlight that the younger age group will try to use what they learn at maritime

institutions, which is considered as the strongest skill that they got.

6.4.4.2. Effect of Rank

The questions that are emphasised in red colour, as shown in Table 6.15, represents that

there is a significant statistical difference between the rank groups and their responses in the

questionnaire.

Table 6.15 ANOVA on Rank (significant interactions, p-value < 0.05, are shown in red)

p p p p
Var p value Var Var Var Var
value value value value
Q1 0.261 Q10 0.000 Q19 0.002 Q28 0.000 Q37 0.003
Q2 0.287 Q11 0.009 Q20 0.019 Q29 0.200 Q38 0.166
Q3 0.000 Q12 0.004 Q21 0.865 Q30 0.760 Q39 0.024
Q4 0.948 Q13 0.001 Q22 0.101 Q31 0.058 Q40 0.146
Q5 0.556 Q14 0.167 Q23 0.153 Q32 0.003 Q41 0.170
Q6 0.176 Q15 0.105 Q24 0.157 Q33 0.013 Q42 0.280
Q7 0.125 Q16 0.000 Q25 0.257 Q34 0.269 Q43 0.162
Q8 0.004 Q17 0.000 Q26 0.196 Q35 0.000
Q9 0.000 Q18 0.205 Q27 0.007 Q36 0.000

Because of the difference in sample size and non-homogeneous variances, Hochberg’s GT2

and Games-Howell post hoc tests were conducted on the statistically significant variables

only (the red colour cells given in the table above).

106
Table 6.16 Summary of the findings of post hoc tests for the interaction of Ranks.

Captain/master

Deck Cadet
Ch. off.

2nd off.

3rd off.

Other
Pilot
Q Statement

AB

OS
There is no
difficulty in
using English
3 80.5 76.8 81.9 91.7 58.9 79.3 80.6 54.2 75
as a
communicatio
n language.
I found the
BRM course
8 useful for each 75.6 69.6 80.6 79.6 50 44.6 55.6 70.8 66.7
bridge
member.
The course is
helping me to
9 cooperate with 75.6 67.9 79.2 77.8 26.8 51.1 66.7 70.8 87.5
bridge
members.
It is better to
conduct a
monthly
10 71.8 73 87.5 84.3 67.8 77.3 80.5 45.8 95.8
meeting for
bridge team
members.
Bridge
members
should
11 question a 86 92.9 91.7 92.6 71.4 49.6 80.6 75 70.8
higher rank
officer's/
pilot’s

107
 decision not
even when
safety is
affected.
Whenever I
see a
navigational
12 90.2 92.9 93.1 85.2 69.6 84.8 88.9 83.3 95.8
warning, I
always report
it.
I found that
the BRM
13 course 68.3 62.5 76.4 78.7 26.8 50 47.2 58.3 75
improved my
skills.
I do risk
assessment
when the ship
16 78 76.8 77.8 85.2 37.5 62 77.8 58.3 75
passes through
heavy traffic
areas.
I get the
benefit of
other bridge
member’s
17 87.2 82.1 81.9 78.7 57.1 84.8 80.6 83.3 91.7
experience to
make a safe
and effective
decision.
There is a
briefing
among bridge
19 76.2 73.2 80.6 67.6 82.1 77.2 66.7 25 70.8
team before
the watch
started.

108
 I found a good
atmosphere of
20 83.5 69.6 72.2 82.4 75 80.4 80.6 75 58.3
teamwork in
the bridge.
I rely on
electronic
27 navigation 62.8 35.7 48.6 48.1 75 47.8 44.4 41.7 62.5
equipment for
a safe passage.
I am confident
that I can
operate the
navigational
28 equipment 83.5 83.9 87.5 89.8 75 66.3 69.4 79.2 83.3
within my area
of
responsibility
safely.
Bridge
members are
encouraged to
32 86 83.9 88.9 79.6 69.6 77.2 86.1 91.7 87.5
improve
navigational
safety.
I am consulted
about, and
invited to get
involved in
33 78.7 76.8 55.6 73.1 58.9 60.9 66.7 87.5 79.2
changes that
affect
teamwork in
the bridge.
Mistakes are
35 corrected 80.5 64.3 73.6 75 58.9 81.5 83.3 25 75
without

109
 punishment
and treated as
a learning
opportunity.
Watch hand-
overs are
36 81.1 58.9 75 83.3 69.6 83.7 91.7 25 75
thorough and
not hurried.
I can easily
maintain my
situational
37 83.5 82.1 84.7 87 64.3 76.1 80.6 79.2 50
awareness
during my
watch.
There is
sufficient time
allocated for
39 70.1 51.8 55.6 59.3 69.6 72.8 66.7 79.2 50
the hand-overs
when joining
the ship.

Table 6.16 above presents the variations between different age groups based on the ANOVA

one-way analysis test. It shows that the deck cadet group has the most considerable

disagreements in most of the statement, and the captains and officers group have

significantly higher averages on safety features. Overall, all the rank groups agree on ‘it

couldn’t be possible to use the electronic navigation equipment to ensure a safe passage

only’. Also, they agree that ‘there is no sufficient time allocated to pass the all job

description, information, or important details to the hand-overs group when joining the

ship’.

According to the statements presented in Table 6.16, it could be possible to divide this group

into two categories, which are; seafarers who got BRM (master, officers, pilot and other)

110
known as team 1; and the second category seafarers did not get BRM (cadet, AB and OS)

known as team 2. Team 1 finds the overall communication and teamwork better than team 2;

this may be due to the BRM, including communication, teamwork, sharing situational

awareness and assisting the bridge team to have superior interaction skills. Besides, team 2

has significantly lower scores than team 1 regarding involvement in the meetings or

discussions during bridge meetings. Team 1 should have a meeting with team 2 to identify

what type of problems or issues could be related to the safety of navigation, or both teams

should attend the same course so an improvement of the shared situational awareness, safety

culture and working as one team in the bridge will be enhanced.

Moreover, the seafarers who attended the BRM course can be divided into senior bridge

officers, including captains and chief officers, and junior bridge officers, including the

second and third officers. There is a difference between the view of the junior officers and

the view of the senior officers regarding involvement and teamwork. The junior officers

always deal with the ship and her manoeuvre during the navigational watch. The senior

officers, like the captains, are overall in charge, and the Chief officers are responsible for the

cargo and its plan, which make him fully competent with the task. However, chief officers

are not involved in the navigational watch as it’s happening in some companies. Therefore,

junior officers do not believe that they are consulted about the changes that affect their way

of working as much as the senior officers are consulted, nor do they believe that their

suggestions for improving the safety of navigation are welcomed to the same extent.

In general, cadets face some difficulties with teaming up with other bridge team members

because they think that they should not question the other bridge team members for their

actions. Also, fearing punishment or being discharged from the vessel due to lack of their

competency reflects in their confidence while they forgot that the main aim for them is to

learn and train to become an officer after graduating from the maritime academy. Therefore,

111
the opportunity to take the watch with confidence under the guidance of the OOW will

increase their skills and competency as well as better communication.

Pilots must have no difficulties in talking and understanding the English language due to

their job specification, which require them to deal with many nationalities and different

accents. However, 33% of pilots think they cannot exchange some information with other

bridge team members due to the language difficulties or time frame allocated for pilotage

operation. In addition, more than 50% of pilots answered in BRM statements with ‘Do not

know’.

Accordingly, this is a perfect reason to develop the new BRM course to include such

seafarers to improve their skills and knowledge to address the safety of navigation in a

proper and safe way. BRM courses should also be designed to mix bridge team and pilots to

enhance the communication between the pilots and the bridge team.

6.4.4.3. Effect of Experience at Sea

The questions that are emphasised in red colour, as shown in Table 6.17, represent a

significant statistical difference between the experience at sea groups and their responses to

the questionnaire.

Table 6.17 ANOVA on Experience at Sea (significant interactions, p-value < 0.05, are shown in red)

p p p p p
Var Var Var Var Var
value value value value value
Q1 0.068 Q10 0.160 Q19 0.138 Q28 0.420 Q37 0.000
Q2 0.005 Q11 0.250 Q20 0.111 Q29 0.821 Q38 0.580
Q3 0.262 Q12 0.004 Q21 0.168 Q30 0.002 Q39 0.711
Q4 0.477 Q13 0.242 Q22 0.073 Q31 0.005 Q40 0.038
Q5 0.069 Q14 0.771 Q23 0.055 Q32 0.060 Q41 0.278
Q6 0.126 Q15 0.617 Q24 0.010 Q33 0.136 Q42 0.566
Q7 0.087 Q16 0.000 Q25 0.411 Q34 0.764 Q43 0.067
Q8 0.529 Q17 0.000 Q26 0.046 Q35 0.007

112
 Q9 0.365 Q18 0.855 Q27 0.014 Q36 0.180

Because of the difference in sample size and non-homogeneous variances, Hochberg’s GT2

and Games-Howell post hoc tests were conducted on the statistically significant variables

only (the red colour cells given in the table above).

Table 6.18 Summary of the findings of post hoc tests for the interaction of Experience at Sea.

Less than 1-4 4-8 More than

Q Statement
a year years years 8 years
There is a good communication
2 63.8 79.8 81 85
environment on the bridge.
Whenever I see a navigational
12 70.5 85.3 90.5 88.8
warning, I always report it.
I do a risk assessment when the
16 ship passes through heavy traffic 43.3 62.5 79.8 77
areas.
I get the benefit of other bridge
17 member’s experience to make a 56.8 78.3 83.8 85
safe and effective decision.
I can correct the information for
24 another bridge team member even 56.8 74.3 73 78.3
if he/she higher ranks than me.
I found no difficulty in using
26 navigational equipment to ensure 59 74.3 75 79.3
safe passage.
I rely on electronic navigation
27 72.8 54 42 55.8
equipment for a safe passage.
Other bridge members encourage
30 45.5 72.8 78.5 75
me to report unsafe events.
I receive feedback about my
31 compliance to the safety of 41 63.3 70.3 69.8
navigation.
35 Mistakes are corrected without 54.5 64.8 77 78

113
 punishment and treated as a
learning opportunity.
I can easily maintain my
37 situational awareness during my 52.3 81.3 81.8 82
watch.
We are sharing the same situational
40 50 69.5 71 73.8
awareness in the bridge.

Table 6.18 above presents the variations between the experience at sea groups based on the

ANOVA one-way analysis test. It shows that fresh seafarers were in strong disagreement in

most of the statements in the questionnaire. Seafarers' experience can solve many issues

when it is related to the safety of the vessel. Therefore, experienced seafarers should come

together with the least experience seafarers more frequently to identify the underlying

reasons for the different perceptions and fill the gap between them. Even though experienced

seafarers believe that they always put safety above their ignorance and never keep the

information to themselves, there is a significant statistical difference between experienced

seafarers and fresh ones regarding this issue. In addition to this, experienced seafarers gain

most of their experience/practice by spending more time onboard the ships by observing the

challenging working conditions and problems they face. Also, it is shown that fresh seafarers

have limited use of their knowledge as they heavily rely on the equipment more than sharing

the information and applying teamwork. All the bridge team members should work as a team

to ensure and maintain navigational safety. Less experienced seafarers should be able to

communicate without any hesitation if there is an issue with the safety of the vessel. It is

well-known that people are afraid to speak or express their opinion on any issue because of

the fear of punishment or criticism by the higher-ranked seafarers. Therefore, the shipping

industry should eliminate the blame culture and embrace the just culture to create a learning

opportunity. This will encourage the seafarers to take more responsibilities to improve the

safety culture and the bridge team's resilience for avoiding a maritime accident.

114
6.4.4.4. Effect of Nationality

The questions that are emphasised in red colour, as shown in Table 6.19, represents that

there is a significant statistical difference between the nationality groups and their response

in the questionnaire.

Table 6.19 ANOVA on Nationality (significant interactions, p-value < 0.05, are shown in red)

p p p p p
Var Var Var Var Var
value value value value value
Q1 0.014 Q10 0.101 Q19 0.049 Q28 0.102 Q37 0.011
Q2 0.002 Q11 0.459 Q20 0.000 Q29 0.001 Q38 0.594
Q3 0.003 Q12 0.589 Q21 0.646 Q30 0.202 Q39 0.133
Q4 0.176 Q13 0.021 Q22 0.476 Q31 0.003 Q40 0.471
Q5 0.086 Q14 0.551 Q23 0.002 Q32 0.149 Q41 0.819
Q6 0.168 Q15 0.086 Q24 0.005 Q33 0.428 Q42 0.310
Q7 0.492 Q16 0.000 Q25 0.764 Q34 0.135 Q43 0.671
Q8 0.387 Q17 0.713 Q26 0.005 Q35 0.005
Q9 0.318 Q18 0.296 Q27 0.035 Q36 0.000

The post-hoc test is not performed for all statements because at least one group has fewer

than two cases. Therefore, the Pakistani, Yemeni, Georgian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian,

Montenegro, and Romanian participants were re-categorised under the other group (the red

coloured cells given in the table above).

Table 6.20 Summary of the findings of post hoc tests for the interaction of nationality.
Egyptian
Croatian

Filipino

Russian
British

Indian

Polish

Saudi

Other

Q Statement

115
 Language/dialect
related issues
52.2 34.2 43. 54.2 30. 38
1 among bridge 70.75 50 25
5 5 74 5 75 .5
members are not a
threat to safety.
There is a good
communication 93. 70.
2 91.8 90 85.8 85.3 87.5 85.5 75
environment on the 8 5
bridge.
There is no
difficulty in using
81. 73
3 English as a 79.3 85 77.3 88.3 75.0 85.5 68
3 .3
communication
language.
I found that the
BRM course 87. 43. 69
13 70.8 75 67.5 63.3 83.3 79.3
improved my 5 5 .8
skills.
I do risk
assessment when
87. 52. 78
16 the ship passes 79.3 70 68.5 82.8 91.8 77
5 5 .5
through heavy
traffic areas
There is a briefing
among the bridge 81. 62.
19 75 50 82.5 73 87.5 73 84
team before the 3 8
watch started.
I found a good
atmosphere of 87. 65. 82
20 70.8 85 82.5 84.3 75 81.3
teamwork in the 5 5 .3
bridge.

116
 There is a
collaboration
between bridge 87. 77. 80
23 75 80 82.5 80.5 37.5 70.8
team members to 5 5 .3
ensure safe
navigation.
I can correct the
information for
another bridge 74. 78
24 79.3 70 69.5 79 41.8 75 79.3
team member even 3 .5
if he/she has higher
ranks than me.
I found no
difficulty in using
navigational 93. 64. 78
26 75 90 77.3 81 58.3 81.3
equipment to 8 8 .5
ensure safe
passage.
I rely on electronic
navigation 87.
27 70.8 65 40.3 53.5 37.5 45.8 59 50
equipment for a 5
safe passage.
I fully understand
my responsibilities 62. 89. 85
29 79.3 95 87 91.3 75 98
for my duty on the 5 8 .8
bridge.
I receive feedback
about my
43. 51. 73
31 compliance to the 70.8 75 74 73 70.8 68.8
8 3 .3
safety of
navigation.

117
 Mistakes are
corrected without
punishment and 87. 78
35 75 80 77.3 80.5 75 75 57
treated as a 5 .5
learning
opportunity.
Watch hand-overs
81. 62. 76
36 are thorough and 75 80 83.8 86.3 45.8 79.3
3 8 .8
not hurried.
I can easily
maintain my
87. 67. 78
37 situational 75 90 81.5 86.3 79.3 87.5
5 3 .5
awareness during
my watch.

Table 6.20 above presents the variations between nationalities based on the ANOVA one-

way analysis test. Overall, there is a fluctuation between the disagreement and agreement

responses. All nationalities find language-related issues threat to safety, and there is a need

for significant improvement to solve this problem. Even though the British seafarers have a

much better English language than the others, but they might struggle to communicate with

other groups. The language-related communication barriers may lead to safety-critical

outcomes, which require an investigation to address this issue among all seafarers. It also

shows that the Saudi participants' group has the most disagreement on most of the statements

linked possibly to their poor language skills.

Egyptian and Filipino participants think that lower-rank seafarers should not correct their

senior’s information, which might lead to a safety concern if the safety of the vessel is

affected. The new BRM course takes this point into account by improving the seafarers’

confidence level through the better communication concept between all ranks in the bridge.

118
Polish, Russian and Saudi seafarers feel that they do not receive enough feedback for their

compliance to the safety of navigation, and this may prevent them from improving their

safety-related skills and make them look incompetent. One of the new BRM course elements

is enhancing the teamwork culture and improving the bridge team's resilience through

dedicated simulator training.

Highlighting the issues related to English communication among all nationality, even British

participants, this referred to understanding the safety of navigational aspects among bridge

team members and using the navigational equipment as primary tools to ensure navigational

safety.

6.5. Chapter summary

A questionnaire-based survey about the BRM was conducted and analysed in this chapter.

Results of the safe environment of bridge teamwork assessments were generated for each

member in the bridge. The study provided significant insight into the attitude and

perceptions within the bridge team. These results will be addressed during the development

of a new BRM course, which is presented in the next chapter. The new course will be

designed to eliminate weaknesses and gaps identified during the questionnaire-based survey

study analysis.

119
7. Bridge Resource Management (BRM) Course: Development of a
New Course for the Bridge Team

7.1. Introduction

The IMO has reviewed the education and training standards for all seafarers through the

STCW convention to enhance their knowledge and skills. However, after analysing many

maritime accidents, it is shown that there is an issue with the performance of the bridge

team. Furthermore, the highlighted underlying reasons derived from these accident analyses

show that there is a lack of utilisation of the resources on the bridge or lack of

implementation of the BRM principles among bridge team members. These findings were

also supported by the survey carried out among seafarers, as presented in Chapter 6. Based

on the findings in chapter 5 and chapter 6, this chapter will propose the new BRM course

and compare it to the existing BRM courses. The comparison of the new and existing course

will be performed in terms of practical efficiency by carrying out experiments in the

navigational simulator to identify the benefits of the new course on the bridge team act and

the improvement in their performance using planned scenarios.

7.2. Bridge Resource Management (BRM) courses

After searching the Bridge Resource Management courses offered by many maritime

institutions, it was shown that there are some differences between them. The duration of the

course and the contents are the main reasons for these differences. As part of the PhD, it was

decided to take the BRM courses in different institutions to identify the differences to answer

the questions like; why there are differences in the course contents? Why some institutions

give the course in three days, and others give it in five days? Are there any differences in

teaching methods or quality? What is the approach the instructor/instructors adopt to cover

the critical elements of BRM? In order to find answers to these questions, it was planned to

visit four maritime institutions certified as official training centres by the flag state on behalf

120
of IMO. The initial plan was to focus on how the OOW can increase his/her situational

awareness and the adopted methods to do so. However, the course duration and contents

changed this plan. Due to the organisers' cancellation because of the lack of minimum

student numbers, the comparison is made based on the courses run by two maritime

institutions that the Author attended and completed successfully. This highlights the issue of

running BRM courses frequently.

The courses attended were monitored by using the BRM course form, which can be found in

Appendix B. Monitoring the courses aimed to highlight the differences between the courses

in terms of contents, teaching method and style, the methods to increase the SA among

bridge team members and the bases of the simulator training scenarios (whether it is based

on the real maritime accidents or educational scenarios). Table 7-1 below summarises all the

differences between these courses run in two different institutions in two different countries.

Table 7.1 Comparison of BRM courses between two maritime institutions

IMO minimum
Aspects Institution A Institution B
requirement

Course duration 5 Days 3 Days

5 Instructors (including
Number of
the simulator 1 Instructor
instructors
instructor)

Assistance professors
position(s) of Lecturer and ex-captain
and ex-captains with
Lecturer(s) and with over 15 years of
over ten years of
experience experience
experience

1. Presentation of the 1. Presentation of the

Teaching method lectures. lectures.

2. Videos. 2. Videos.
3. Workshops. 3. Workshops.

121
 1. Introduction for 1. Review of basic
BRM. principles.
2. Communication 2. Familiarisation
. with the bridge.
3. Master-Pilot 3. Standard
exchange manoeuvres.
information. 4. Wind and current
4. Leadership. effects.
5. Risk 5. Attitude.
Assessment. 6. Cultural awareness. 1. Introduction.
6. Situational 7. Briefing and 2. Overview of BRM.
awareness. debriefing. 3. BRM Regulations
7. Challenge and 8. Challenge and and guidance.
response. response. 4. Situational
9. Shallow-water awareness.
effects. 5. Communication.
10. Bank, channel and 6. Master- Pilot
Course contents interaction effects. Exchange and
11. Planning. passage Planning
12. Authority. procedures.
13. Management on the 7. Risk Assessment.
bridge. 8. Errors detection.
14. Workload and 9. Cultural factors.
stress. 10. Stress and
15. Anchoring and Decision-making.
single-buoy 11. Fatigue.
mooring.
16. Human factor
errors.
17. Decision-making.
18. Crisis management.
19. Planning and
carrying out a
voyage in normal
and emergency

122
 situations.
Number of
students attending 16 Students 3 Students
the course

Assessment Exam No Yes

Simulation
Yes No
training (available)

1. Open sea. Simulator training

2. Berthing. required to have
3. Fog. another course with
4. Blend condition. extra cost. (However)
Simulation
5. Master-pilot
scenario(s) 1. Open sea.
exchange.
2. Master-pilot
exchange.
3. Emergency
situation.
8 Students/Group

1. Captain.
Number of
2. Chief officer.
students attending
3. Second officer.
the simulator per None
4. Third officer.
group and their
5. Cadet.
rules
6. Lookout.
7. Pilot.
8. Wheelman.

The STCW convention covered the general requirements for the BRM course but did not

cover the details, which are made it vague to be standardised, which can be found in

Appendix C. Accordingly, every institution has to cover BRM content in its perspective to

follow the IMO requirements (Taha, 2018).

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 • Institution A

In general, Institution A focused on increasing the knowledge of the individuals. It seems

that according to them, the OOW should gain the required knowledge so that he/she can deal

with the bridge activates and increase the sharing of knowledge among the bridge team

members. The course has been structured to be a half-day lecture and half a day training in

the simulator. All the instructors cover between 4 and 5 topics in the classroom half-day

teaching, aiming to cover the course's entire contents without focusing on the key elements.

However, every training scenario in the simulator was designed to evaluate the student's

learning outcome from class-based teaching.

On the first day, the course coordinator divided the class into two groups, and each group

contained eight students who can be accommodated in the simulator room. He explained the

fundamentals and aim of the BRM and how an OOW can benefit from all resources available

in the bridge to ensure the safety of navigation. After that, the first group got together in the

simulator room for the exercise, which started with familiarising the bridge and its

equipment. The course continued with the defined roles for everyone and their duties. The

assignment for the roles was changeable so that every student can experience every different

role by the end of the course. According to the Author’s view, the number of team roles and

the number of students in the simulator room was not compatible as there were too many

students. Therefore, the first training exercise was not realistic, but it got slightly better in the

last exercise. None of the officers managed to do their duties (communication, passage

planning, etc.) without interfering with each other. Also, the bridge team's communication

loop was not understandable because of the background conversation by other team

members, which interfered with the activities of bridge team members. This forced the

captain (of every exercise) to repeat his orders many times to be understood in some parts of

the training.

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On the second day, normal class-based teaching was delivered by another instructor, who

went through five topics (Cultural awareness, Briefing and debriefing, Challenge and

response, Shallow-water effects and Bank channel and interaction effects), and the day

ended by sailing under condition (Shallow-water) scenario. In this scenario, the ship was in

critical (collision) condition due to the lack of teamwork, lookout and hesitation of the

master, the ship was prevented from collision by the intervention from an experienced

officer.

On the third day, a third instructor joined the class and explained the following topics

(Passage Planning, Authority, Management on the bridge, and Workload and

stress) followed by Berthing/unberthing scenarios. On the fourth day, a new instructor

explained the following topics (Anchoring and single-buoy mooring, Human factor errors,

Decision-making) and followed by the master-pilot exchange scenario. On the final day, the

instructor explained (Crisis management, Planning and carrying out a voyage in normal and

emergency situations). The day ended with an emergency situation scenario in the simulator

room. The students must attend the entire five-day course to have a Certificate of Proficiency

for Bridge Resource Management under the regulation of The International Convention on

Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW).

Overall, this course was planned to increase the students' knowledge instead of filling the

gap in their skills. Also, the changing of instructors every day made it challenging to cover

all topics, especially the core of BRM topics such as communication, situational awareness

and teamwork, by explaining the headlines only because it was delivered in other courses,

therefore, does not increase the skills of participants. Moreover, every instructor used his

experience at sea as part of teaching, which led the student to understand and gain the

required knowledge and connected to future work-life. On the other hand, the instructor’s

experience can distract the student’s intention in a way that is not related to BRM. The

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course increased my knowledge in the navigational part, which is sailing in a narrow

channel, low water surface, etc., instead of focusing on the skill that I required to do as part

of the bridge team member, which appears clearly in the simulator training. From my

perspective, the course covers more than the IMO requirement; however, it failed to achieve

the desired outcome for the OOW’s skill and fill the gap in his interaction with other bridge

team members.

• Simulator Training Scenario

The simulator training's purpose was to observe that the student gained the requisite

knowledge and apply it in the training exercise. The students must use navigational

equipment such as RADAR/ARPA, ECDIS, etc., competently to ensure safe navigation. The

instructor had made up all scenarios based on his experience, but the number of students

planned was unsuccessful. Every bridge member's role was planned according to their duty

onboard any commercial ship, which was shown in Table 7-2 below. However, with this

number of students on the bridge, none of the bridge members managed to perform tasks

according to duties successfully, except the captain, one of the navigation officers, wheelman

and the pilot in case of the berthing, unberthing and master-pilot exchange. This was due to

the room size and the navigational equipment, which are close to each other, as shown in

Figure 7.1. Moreover, the background talk between the bridge team members, which was not

related to the navigational practice, made it worse, but it improved slightly by the fourth and

fifth days.

Overall, the training scenarios were related to the BRM lectures, but only four out of eight

students managed to work as a team in every scenario. Moreover, although the BRM

elements were covered during the simulation training, it was not sufficient in the first three

days as there was no learning from mistakes briefing after each scenario. However, learning

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from mistakes sessions were conducted at the beginning of the fourth-day class and found to

be very beneficial for the scenarios covered in the fourth and fifth days of the course.

On the other hand, the unrealistically excessive number of bridge team members in the

simulator room for a cargo ship adversely affected the bridge teams’ SA and decision-

making instead of improving it.

Table 7.2 Role of the bridge team member

Role Duty
Captain Overall in charge
Ch. Off. Communication officer/ Navigation officer
2nd Off. Navigation officer
3rd Off. Navigation officer
Pilot Assistance (if required)
Cadet Assistance (if required)
Lookout Lookout/Assistance (if required)
Wheelman Controlling the wheel of the ship

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Figure 7.1 The simulator room

• Institution B

In general, Institution B focused on increasing the skills of individuals rather than their

knowledge. It seems that according to the instructor, the OOW should work as part of the

team rather than gaining the knowledge, which he/she should have already known from

his/her previous studies. The course has been structured to be a full-day lecture, and there is

no training in the simulator, which was offered as a BRM in the simulator training as an

additional course with extra cost.

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In the beginning, the instructor introduced the BRM as a tool that can help the OOW to

communicate and work as a team with other bridge team members to ensure safe navigation.

Then, he covered (BRM Regulations and guidance, Situational awareness,

Communication) topics. On the second day, the instructor gave a quick revision for the first

class before he continued. On the second day, the instructor covered Master- Pilot Exchange

and passage Planning procedures as a full-day lecture and organised a workshop between

the three students to perform passage planning for a sailing trip from point A to point B. The

workshop included highlighting the risky areas, all useful information that could help the

bridge team along with the trip and projection of all situations that the ship and the bridge

team may face. On the third day, he covered the following topics (Risk Assessment, Errors

detection, Cultural factor, Stress and Decision-making, and Fatigue) before conducting the

exam. According to institution B's policy, the student must be marked over 70% in the exam

to be certified by the Certificate of Proficiency for Bridge Resource Management under the

regulation of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and

Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW).

Overall, this course was planned to increase the students' skills instead of filling the gap in

their knowledge. This appeared clearly in the workshop activities because only one of the

students, which is the researcher of this thesis, got the knowledge and the experience to

explain some of the missed or unknown information to the other workshop participants. This

helped in sharing information between the team, but it increased the load on the speaker to

explain every piece of information.

7.3. Comparison between BRM courses

Overall, all institutions run the course to the best practice according to their understanding of

the IMO requirement to achieve the aim and vision behind the BRM course. Institution A

focused on increasing the amount of knowledge that was taught to the students so that they

129
can use it to improve their decision-making to avoid accidents. However, some fundamental

topics such as communication and SA were not covered as they should be, and this gap

became very obvious in simulator training. On the other hand, institution B concentrated on

improving the students’ skills to improve communication, teamwork, SA, etc., within the

bridge team. However, the amount of knowledge transferred to students was not enough,

which was very apparent in the workshop activities.

The number of instructors in institution A made the teaching load on the lecturers less every

day, but the randomness and distractions were clear while teaching the course. Moreover,

every instructor used his past experience to address the benefit of BRM inside the bridge, but

sometimes it became irrelevant to BRM, which created confusion and loss of class time.

While in institution B, there was only an instructor with a full teaching load, who delivered

the course for three days, which was found to be well-organised, easy and fluent to be

understandable over the three days, and he took his time to explain each topic well.

According to the Author, one instructor with a well-organised course is much better than a

bunch of instructors with a divided teaching load and unstructured course delivery.

Originally the plan was to attend four BRM courses offered by different training institutions

to identify the differences among BRM courses in terms of contents and delivery. However,

over two years, several institutions regularly cancelled their BRM courses due to the lack of

registered seafarers for the course. Furthermore, several institutions run the BRM course

only for a group from the same company.

Following the two BRM courses attended by the Author and the insight gained during many

attempts to register for other BRM courses, a more standardised and structured approach to

BRM courses is strongly recommended. The BRM course is a standardised training course

implemented by the IMO through the STCW convention, and this should be observed and

practised. This may require specific certification of the BMR instructors, who should go

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through a dedicated training of trainers’ course. Considering that seafarers change shipping

companies regularly or change ships within the same shipping company and that a

cadet/rating ranks such as AB and OS may want to take this course on his own in order to

apply for a certificate of competency (COC), it is time to propose a new BRM course. This

course would be designed for all seafarers, not just for officers, and would provide

standardised training, including all the key soft skills required by BRM. Extending the BRM

course to ratings and cadets will increase the team situational awareness and potentially

prevent many accidents.

7.4. Proposal for a New Bridge Resource Management Course for All

Seafarers (BRMs)

After identifying the gaps in BRM courses which are related to contents, teaching methods,

availability, workshop activities and the simulation training, it was determined that an

essential development activity with the BRM course should be undertaken to fill those gaps

and achieve the IMO requirements at the same time. The Bridge Resource Management

course for Seafarers (BRMs) is developed to improve the bridge members’ knowledge and

skills by implementing a simple method with regards to the interactions within the bridge

team. This will enhance navigational safety, which is the ultimate aim of the BRM. The new

course combines the knowledge and skills to be easily understood by every crew involved in

bridge activities.

7.4.1. BRMs Preparation

After taking part in the BRM courses run by the two maritime institutions and checking other

BRM courses offered by various maritime institutions, the new BRM course was designed to

focus on the bridge team behaviour, bridge team act and increasing the bridge team's

knowledge too. The course was designed by following the IMO criteria set for the bridge

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resource management course (International Maritime Organisation, 2013). Also, the course

was developed after studying the BRM course notes from four different maritime

institutions, two books related to BRM (A. J. Swift, 2004; Parrott, 2011), and maritime

educational videos that are related to BRM. The BRMs course has been reviewed by two

assistant professors, who are working in different maritime institutions, an expert lecturer

retired from the maritime educational sector, and two captains, who have been working in

the maritime industry to highlight any gaps and to provide feedback. Table 7-3 below shows

the description of the newly proposed BRM course. According to maritime experts, the

course duration must be minimised for the following reasons:

• It can be easily understandable by the participants.

• The shipping companies prefer short-time course for their crew so more crew can

attend more courses in a short period.

• The overall cost to the seafarers if he/she wants to join the course using his own

finances. This is a valid point as many small companies do not pay the training costs

for their crew.

By taking these points into consideration, the new course was designed to be delivered in

three days without losing its efficiency and effectiveness because of the time. The

participants must attend three full-day lectures between 08:00 and 16:00 hours in the class

with an hour and a half break-time in between. Every day between 16.00 and 17.00,

simulation training is included to practice the course contents shown in Table 7.4 below.

In the full-mission simulator, the scenarios were prepared to simulate the real safety-critical

situations that the bridge team might face in real life. Scenarios designed for the simulator

would be covered in three days; every training session might have more than one scenario

and includes Open-sea (Collision avoidance), Master-Pilot exchange (Berthing), Restricted

visibility and Emergency situations. In all scenarios, the bridge team shall sail under the

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Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972

(COLREGs) (IMO, 1972). Therefore, the focus will be on the actions of the bridge team

based on the following rules:

Rule 5 requires that “every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and

hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and

conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision”.

Rule 6 deals with safe speed. It requires that: "Every vessel shall at all times proceed at a

safe speed...”.

Rule 7 covering the risk of collision, which "assumptions shall not be made on the basis of

scanty information, especially scanty radar information."

Rule 8 covers action to be taken to avoid a collision.

Rule 12 states action to be taken when two sailing vessels are approaching one another.

Rule 13 covers overtaking - the overtaking vessel should keep out of the way of the vessel

being overtaken.

Rule 14 deals with head-on situations.

Rule 15 deals with Crossing situations.

Rule 16 action(s) to be taken by the give-way vessel.

Rule 17 deals with the action of the stand-on vessel, including the provision that the stand-

on vessel may "take action to avoid collision by her manoeuvre alone as soon as it becomes

apparent to her that the vessel required to keep out of the way is not taking appropriate

action”.

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Rule 19 states every vessel should proceed at a safe speed adapted to prevailing

circumstances and restricted visibility.

Table 7.3 Course description

Aspects
Course duration 3 Days.
Teaching method 1. Presentation of the lectures.
2. Videos.
3. Workshops.
Course contents 1. Bridge Formalisation.
2. BRMs Elements.
3. Situational and self-awareness.
4. Communication.
5. Lookout.
6. Leadership.
7. Passage Planning.
8. Bridge Watchkeeping.
9. Master-Pilot Exchange.
10. Accidents and Accident
causation (Human factor).
11. Risk assessment.
12. Stress and Fatigue.
Number of students attending the course 5 Students
Assessment Exam during the simulator training Yes
Simulation training (available) Yes
Simulation scenario(s) 1. Open sea (Collision avoidance).
2. Master-Pilot exchange
(Berthing).
3. Restricted visibility.
4. Emergency situations.
Number of students attending the simulator per 1. Captain.
group and their rules 2. Officer of the watch (OOW).
3. Cadet/Pilot.
4. Lookout.

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 5. Wheelman.

Table 7.4 BRMs timetable

Time First day Second day Third day

08:00-10:30 Bridge Formalisation. Passage Planning. Accidents and

BRMs Elements. Accident causation
(Human factor).
10:30-10:45 Break time

10:50- 12:00 Situational and self- Passage Planning. Accidents and

awareness. Bridge Accident causation
Watchkeeping. (Human factor).
12:00-13:00 Lunch break

13:00-14:45 Communication. Bridge Risk assessment.

Watchkeeping. Stress and Fatigue.
Master-Pilot
Exchange.
14:45-15:00 Break time

15:00-16:00 Lookout. Master-Pilot Stress and Fatigue.

Leadership. Exchange.
16:00-17:00 Simulator training

7.5. Summary

The intention is to improve navigational safety by utilising the BRM effectively. This

chapter demonstrated an overview, effectiveness, deficiency and gaps of existing BRM

courses, which lead to analyses of two attended BRM courses in two different maritime

institutions. Also, the process of proposing and developing a new BRM course that is

suitable for all bridge team member. The efficiency and effectiveness of the new course will

135
be tested by performing experiments in full-mission bridge simulation as presented in

Chapter 8.

Besides, there is another course that most maritime institutions give, which is called Human

Element, Leadership and Management course (HELM) that is similar to BRM’s contents,

goals and outcomes. The initial plan to attend this course and the BRM courses highlights

the differences between BRM and HELM. However, the maritime institutions' cancellation

of the helm course made it difficult to achieve, but it will be available for further study soon.

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8. Comparative Assessment of New BRMs Courses with the Normal
Method by Performing Experiments in the Simulator

8.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the developed Bridge Resource Management course will be tested in a full-

mission ship navigational bridge simulator. For testing the procedures, the prepared

scenarios will be utilised in the simulator environment. These scenarios are developed using

the real accidents obtained from the accident review study using the accident investigation

reports from the Maritime Accidents Investigation Branch (MAIB), Australian Transport

Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSBC). The main goal

of this experiment is to confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of the new course on the

bridge team behaviour and act during the navigational operation.

The efficiency and effectiveness of the course will be determined by the enhancement in the

navigational safety that would have been achieved if the bridge team act safely and work as a

team to avoid a dangerous situation and prevent accidents. Therefore, the experiment will be

recorded to be analysed by explaining the effect of the new course on the bridge team and,

accordingly, how their performance is being enhanced after finishing all experiment

activities.

In the end, results will be discussed to provide the potential benefits for implementing the

developed BRM course involving all bridge team members.

8.2. Participants

Ten seafarers volunteered to join the experiment in the full-mission simulator. All the

volunteers finished four years of nautical science degree in a maritime faculty, so they will

earn a BSc degree in nautical science and second mate licence after finishing a year in

cadetship training onboard ships. The sea-time experience for these students ranged from six

137
months to twelve months, and working on the bridge training ranged from two to six months.

The volunteers are divided into two groups A and B, and each one has 1 Capt, 1 OOW, 1

Cadet/Pilot, 1 Lookout and 1 helmsman, as shown in Figure 8.1 and Figure 8.2. Both groups

took the fundamentals of BRM as part of their course plan over the four years through the

maritime faculty. However, the new BRM course will be introduced to group A while group

B will perform the simulator experiments based on the knowledge they gained before

through their studies in the maritime college over the four years. The scenarios to be tested

will not be known by both groups, and they will be instructed only before the training

session.

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Figure 8.1 The bridge team of group A

Figure 8.2 The bridge team of group B

8.3. The Navigation Bridge Simulator

The simulator experiments are designed to test the new BRM that took place in the Faculty

of Maritime Studies campus. TRANSAS 270° full mission navigation bridge simulator was

used to perform the scenarios, as shown in Figure 8.3. It has the capacity of training and skill

assessment such as familiarisation, watchkeeping, emergency preparation and bridge

139
resources management. It has a variety of navigation equipment that exist on commercial

vessels, for instance, Radar, ECDIS, VHF, GMDSS, Echo-sounder, GPS, off-course alarm,

etc. The simulator provides different operational conditions, including several weather

conditions. It also has the ability to imitate the navigation of bridge of different type and

sizes of ships, such as container, tankers, tug, supply boat etc.

Moreover, the simulator has the models of several sea locations and ports so it could perform

different scenarios easily, such as normal sailing, berthing ships, etc. The external

environment contains a diversity of traffic and weather conditions which can be applied to

various maritime locations to offer real manoeuvring situation. For the experiment, only one

type of vessel was used, which is a 5000 TEU container vessel.

Figure 8.3 TRANSAS 270° full mission navigation bridge simulator

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 8.4. BRMs Lectures

In the beginning, group A and group B have attended the simulator training room together to

become familiar with the bridge equipment; each group had their turn alone (further

discussion will be in the next section). While group A joined the class-based teaching after

the first exercise, Group B was instructed to attend just for simulator training. In the first

class, the students get to know about the new vision behind the new course, aims and

objectives and how this course can enhance the bridge team’s communication, SA and

teamwork. Also, it has been highlighted the differences between the BRM and BRMs before

starting the lecture. The topics which been covered are BRMs Elements, Situational and self-

awareness, Communication, Lookout and Leadership. Each topic aimed to increase the

participant's knowledge and improve the skills by showing what a proper collaboration

among the bridge team should look like. The proper communication between the bridge

team, ship to ship and ship to shore loop were introduced.

The course introduced the three levels of situational awareness and how every bridge

member can gain his/her situational awareness and share it among the team. Furthermore, the

lookout's critical role when he/she performs the duties on the bridge, which is not covered in

the standard BRM course, was explained. Moreover, with every topic, a side topic is

introduced to the participants, which is a maritime accident caused by the main topic and

teach the participants how the bridge team should act and what they should do to avoid this

accident.

On the second day, the topics covered in the lectures are Passage Planning, Bridge

Watchkeeping and Master-Pilot Exchange. The participants joined a workshop as a bridge

team to plan a passage to enter, pick-up pilot and berth the ship in one of the ports that are

available in the simulator. After that, every team member should explain what the bridge

team would do and make a plan ready to practice the plan in the simulator room. On the third

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day, the topics, which are covered, can be listed as Accidents and Accident causation

(Human factor), Risk assessment and Stress and Fatigue. In this lecture, the participants get

to know about the relation between human factors and maritime accidents, the emergency

situations that the bridge team may face during the navigational watch and the effect of the

stress and fatigue on the bridge team as an individual as well as the whole team.

8.5. Simulator Training Scenarios

Each group has spent 20 minutes in the simulator bridge room to get familiar with the

equipment, and they are allowed to ask questions if they are in doubt or they did not know

how to operate any equipment. Both groups receive an explanation about the navigation

conditions in scenarios such as normal sailing in the open water area, pick up a pilot and

berth the ship in the port or sailing under conditions and the characteristics and the condition

of their ship too. Also, they are allocated to their roles among the bridge team, and they must

act naturally during the scenario. They have to avoid grounding or collision with other ships

by following COLREG rules. Every scenario lasts 30-40 minutes, and all the simulator

experiments are recorded for analysis purposes.

The bridge team’s performance was judged based on the time and their acts; how long the

bridge team took to identify the risk of collision, and what actions they took to avoid this

danger, individual/team SA decision-making, proper lookout, leadership and

communication. The team is judged for their actions taken at any time before the TCPA

becomes 4 min which is marked with dark green colour. If the bridge team enters the 4 min

zone, then they are required to take further measures such as decreasing the ship’s speed

which is marked with yellow colour. Moreover, if they enter 2.5 min TCPA, then the risk of

collision is very high and therefore, they are required to take emergency actions such as

reversing the engine and contact the other ship to take necessary action to avoid the collision,

which marked by red colour as shown in Table 8.1. The measurement of every bridge team

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performance is shown in Table 8.2 and Table 8.3 below. The scenarios for each day and the

results for each simulator exercise are provided below.

Table 8.1 Scenario Timing

Measures Data Remark

Scenario starting time 00:00:00

Time of 1st target 00:07:00

appearance

4-7 mins before the

Excellent
collision

Time of detection and 3-4 mins before the

Moderate requires action
taking action collision

0-2 mins before the

Poor risk of collision exists
collision

Time of 2nd target 00:20:00

appearance

4-7 mins before the

Excellent
collision

Time of detection and 3-4 mins before the

Moderate requires action
taking action collision

0-2 mins before the

Poor risk of collision exists
collision

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Table 8.2 Measurement of action is taken and performance.

Action and Performance Remark

Excellent No need for improvement

Good Slight improvements require

Moderate Medium improvements require

Poor Significant improvements require

Table 8.3 KPI for excellent performance for each rank

Ranks KPI

Control the ship, leadership, decision-making, communication, interaction

Captain
with other bridge members, teamwork, build own SA and sharing it, lookout.

Navigate the ship from hazard, leadership, decision-making, communication,

OOW interaction with other bridge members, teamwork, build own SA and sharing

it, lookout.

Exchange information with the captain and other bridge members, decision-

Pilot making, communication, interaction with other bridge members, teamwork,

lookout.

Assist the OOW in the navigation duty, involve in decision-making (if

Cadet require), communication, interaction with other bridge members, teamwork,

build own SA and sharing it.

Lookout Lookout, involve in decision-making (if require), communication, interaction

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 with other bridge members, teamwork, build own SA and sharing it.

Steer the vessel by taking order from (master/OOW or Pilot), communication,

Wheelman
interaction with other bridge members, teamwork.

• First-day scenario

The scenario was set up based on many accidents that occurred and investigated by the

MAIB. Both groups must navigate in open-sea water without any condition while their ship

is in the middle of traffic with several ships navigating around them. Furthermore, two other

ships will cross over in front of their ship from the starboard side, and the risk of collision

between the targets and their own ship is at approximately 7 and 20 minutes, respectively,

with a CPA of 0.2 nm. The roles in this scenario were distributed as Captain, OOW, Cadet,

Lookout and Wheelman. This scenario lasts 30 minutes.

Results

Group A’s performance: the group showed a good practice of bridge team act between the

Capt., OOW and the lookout with regards to the first manoeuvring of the ship by acquiring

the target and taking action to avoid the collision. However, they detected the main target 3.5

minutes before the collision, which is considered as a late response that could lead to a

disaster within the next minute. Also, the bridge team has dropped its performance during

the rest of the scenario, especially during the second manoeuvre; The Capt. ignored the

advice from the OOW, such as reducing the ship's speed while taking the wrong action by

turning the ship to the port and communicating with other targets which increased the risk of

collision with other ships. Overall, the group was focusing on the side targets, which posed a

low risk of collision, instead of the primary target. Also, the bridge team were losing their

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SA during the scenario after 12 minutes by unnecessarily talking to each other on irrelevant

topics to the scenario, as shown in Table 8.4, Table 8.5 and Table 8.6 below.

Table 8.4 Team A measurement in the first-day scenario

Measures Data Remark

Scenario starting time 00:00:00

Time of 1st target

00:07:00
appearance

Sighted and reported by the

Time of detection 00:03:24 lookout and confirmed by
OOW

Time of taking action Turn to starboard and

00:03:44
reducing ship speed

Time of 2nd target

00:20:00
appearance

Time of detection 00:17:48

Time of taking action Turn to port and reducing

00:18:02
ship speed

Table 8.5 Bridge A Performance in the first-day scenario.

Rank Overall Performance Remarks

Captain Moderate Ignoring advice from other team members, poor

decision-making

OOW Good Irrelevant talk with another team member

Cadet Moderate Irrelevant talk with another team member and

didn’t perform his duty well

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Lookout Moderate Irrelevant talk with another team member and

didn’t perform his duty well

Wheelman Good Irrelevant talk with another team member

Overall Moderate Irrelevant talk between team member, moderate

bridge team focus on the navigational watch

performance

Group B’s performance: this group showed unprofessional bridge act among the team such

as background talk, not following their tasks/duties, etc., which lead to loss of the ship

control by the Capt. due to his hesitation. The wheelman took a correct action by turning the

ship to starboard, but he did not inform his bridge team or receiving the order for this action.

The arguments between the bridge team led to the captain rejecting all the suggestions from

his team. Furthermore, the OOW, Lookout and the cadet were talking to each other instead

of focusing on safe navigation. Overall, this group has sailed the ship while avoiding

collision, but they did not perform it as a bridge team. The wheelman was the most

experienced on the bridge time, so he took most of the actions without taking an order from

or consulting his team members The ego of the captain after some arguments with the team

member caused him not to listen to their suggestion even though the suggestion was the

correct action to do so as shown in Table 8.6 and Table 8.7 below.

Table 8.6 Team B measurement in the first-day scenario

Measures Data Remark

Scenario starting time 00:00:00

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Time of 1st target appearance 00:07:00

00:04:48
Time of detection Sighted by Capt.

Time of taking action 00:05:22

Turn to starboard by wheelman

Time of 2nd target appearance 00:20:00

00:16:33
Time of detection Sighted and reported by OOW

Time of taking action 00:16:48

Turn to starboard and reducing ship speed

Table 8.7 Bridge B Performance in the first-day scenario

Rank Overall Performance Remark

Captain Poor Losing control of the ship, ignore all advice, poor

teamwork, poor decision-making

OOW Moderate Irrelevant talk with another team member, not

helping the Capt. In the decision-making after the

argument.

Cadet Poor Irrelevant talk with other team members, didn’t

perform his duty well

Lookout Poor Irrelevant talk with other team members, didn’t

perform his duty well

148
Wheelman Good Handling the vessel very well but didn’t receive or

inform the order to do so.

Overall Poor Poor teamwork, poor communication and poor

bridge team decision making

performance

• Second-day scenario

The scenario was set up for the master-pilot exchange operation. Both groups must navigate

to pick up the pilot from the pilot boat at the pilot station then proceed to the berth inside the

harbour. The ship is 10 nm away from the pilot station, and two ships are out-bounding from

the harbour. Each group took 15 minutes to prepare the bridge equipment and planned their

route to ensure a safe passage. The roles in this scenario were allocated as Capt, OOW,

Cadet/Pilot, Lookout and Wheelman. This scenario lasted 40 minutes.

Results

Group A’s performance: the group implemented the passage plan that they prepared in the

classroom and applied it in the simulator. The captain defined the roles of the team members

on the bridge, and he shared his SA among them. Therefore, every member of the bridge

knew what would happen during the manoeuvre. A positive impact of the first teaching class

appears on the bridge team's performance due to the enhanced communication and teamwork

among them. However, the team dropped its performance after the pilot took over the con

from the captain. The background talking was a significant reason for the loss of the SA, for

the OOW and the lookout. Overall, the group enhanced their individual/team skills after the

two lectures. The captain took several incompetent decisions after giving the pilot the con,

which led to a loss of the bridge team act, as shown in Table 8.8.

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Table 8.8 Bridge A Performance in the second-day scenario.

Rank Remarks Overall Performance

Captain Capt handover the con to pilot Moderate to Good

OOW The background talking affect his SA Good

Pilot Taking the con from captain Moderate

Lookout The background talking affect his SA Good

Wheelman Excellent performance Excellent

Overall bridge Good bridge teamwork and Good

team performance communication

Group B performance: This group's performance suffered from the start as the captain was

nervous, hesitant, and not confident to take any decision by himself, such as

increase/decrease the ship’s speed without any suggestions from other bridge team members.

After taking the pilot from the pilot boat, the captain transferred the con to the pilot without

exchanging berthing procedures. The exercise has been stopped after 15 minutes due to a

collision with the inner entrance buoy of the channel. Overall, this group did not take

advantage of the preparation time to discuss the manoeuvring procedures. The captain's lack

of confidence made him do other bridge activities such as external communication by

himself instead of asking the other team members to do so. The safe navigation of the ship

was transferred from the captain to the pilot by giving him the con of the ship. There was no

communication between the bridge team members, who were instead talking to each other in

the background. This group has failed to work as a team which led to an accident, as shown

in Table 8.9.

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Table 8.9 Bridge B Performance in the second-day scenario

Rank Remarks Overall Performance

Captain Poor leadership and unconfident Poor

Hand-over the con to pilot

OOW The background talking affects his SA Poor

and not doing his duty.

Pilot Taking the con from Capt. Poor

Not exchanging information with a bridge

team member

Lookout The background talking affect his SA and Poor

not doing his duty

Wheelman Perform his duty well Good

Overall bridge No bridge teamwork and no Poor

team performance communication.

The ship ran aground

• Third-day scenario

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The scenario was set up similar to the first day's scenario condition in order to identify how

the course affected the performance of the participants. The scenario contains two

emergency situations such as failure of the steering system, gyrocompass etc. Both groups

must navigate to pick up the pilot from the pilot boat at the pilot station. The ship is 25 nm

away from the pilot station, with several ships navigating beside them. Furthermore, two

other ships will cross over in front of their ship from the starboard side, and the risk of

collision between the targets and their own ship is at approximately 7 and 20 minutes. Their

ship will be facing fog with visibility less than 2 nm and an unknown emergency situation.

Each group took 15 minutes to prepare the bridge equipment and planned their route to

ensure a safe passage. The roles in this scenario were allocated as Captain, OOW, Cadet,

Lookout and Wheelman. This scenario lasted 30 minutes.

Result

Group A performance: The captain described the role for each member in his team, their

duties and sharing their SA between them. Therefore, every member of the bridge team

knows what will happen during the watch. The lookout suspected that there is a risk of

collision with the first target and reported back to the bridge team, and the OOW confirmed

and reported that it would be after 6.5 min. The captain confirmed the situation, and then he

informed the bridge team about the manoeuvring procedure and what he would expect to be

reported back to him from his bridge team. After passing the first target, a fog situation was

introduced in the scenario; the captain informed the bridge team about the fog procedure,

such as reducing the ship's speed, post extra lookouts, signalling the fog signal, etc. After a

while, the lookout reported a risk of collision with the second target, and the wheelman

reported no steering, and he might face a steering failure. The OOW confirmed that there is a

steering failure alarm appearing on the monitor and forgot to confirm the status of the second

target. The captain confirmed the situation, and then he informed the bridge team about the

steering failure procedure, such as stop the ship, call the engine room, etc. However, he did

152
not call the other target to confirm his ship's condition that she is not under command. The

lookout reported back to the captain about the second ship's status, and the wheelman

confirmed that he had the steering back, and the OOW informed the captain that the TCPA

was 4 min. The captain decided to take proper action by turning the ship to starboard and

increased the ship's speed to avoid the collision. In this time, group B was asked to join the

bridge as observers to observe the reaction and act of proper bridge teamwork. Overall, the

course has enhanced the group’s individual/team skills over the three days. The bridge team

took professional individual/team decisions; the lookout reported every risk to his team, a

stable team SA during the scenario and proper two-way communication between the bridge

team as shown in Table 8.10 and Table 8.11 below.

Table 8.10 Team A measurement in the third-day scenario

Measures Data Remark

Scenario starting time 00:00:00
Time of 1st target
00:07:00
appearance
Sighted and reported by the lookout and
Time of detection 00:01:37
confirmed by OOW
Time of taking action 00:02:41 Turn to starboard
Emergency situation #1 00:10:00 Low visibility actions by the Capt.
Emergency situation #2 Steering failure actions by the captain but
00:13:15
forget to announce the other targets
Time of 2nd target
00:20:00
appearance
Sighted and reported by the lookout and
Time of detection 00:13:02
confirmed by OOW
Time of taking action Turning to starboard and increase ship
00:16:09
speed

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Table 8.11 Bridge A Performance in the third-day scenario.

Rank Overall Performance

Captain Excellent

OOW Excellent

Cadet Excellent

Lookout Excellent

Wheelman Excellent

Overall bridge team performance Excellent. The bridge team showed the

best bridge act all over the scenario

Group B performance: The performance of this group has been enhanced after observing

group A in the last exercise. The captain organised his team member and defined their role,

but he wasted the allocated time to fix the team instead of building team SA. From the

beginning, the team was focusing on the side targets, and they showed proper teamwork

between them. However, the lookout/OOW missed reporting about the primary target with

less than 3.5 TCPA, which created problematic manoeuvring for the ship. The captain

regained the team strength, SA and encouraged his team members to communicate and focus

more on the traffic condition. After that, the team was doing an impressive bridge team

activity during the remaining time and against their conditions. Overall, group B enhanced

their teamwork skill since the first scenario and after observing group A's performance.

However, they did not reach the same safe navigation level compared to group A. The

individual/team SA had fluctuated during the experiment, the two-way communication

between the bridge team was weak, there was unsystematic decision-making, and the

154
lookout did not perform his duties as he supposed to do, as shown in Table 8.12 and Table

8.13 below.

Table 8.12 Team B measurement in the third-day scenario

Measures Data Remark

Scenario starting time 00:00:00
st
Time of 1 target
00:07:00
appearance

Time of detection 00:03:42 Sighted by Capt.

Time of taking action Turn to starboard without reducing ship

00:04:02
speed
Emergency situation #1 00:10:00 Low visibility actions by the Capt.
Emergency situation #2 Steering failure actions by the captain.
00:13:15 However, he missed some steps, and the
bridge team did not notice
Time of 2nd target
00:20:00
appearance
Sighted and reported by the lookout and
Time of detection 00:15:09
confirmed by OOW
Time of taking action 00:15:41 Turning to starboard
Table 8.13 Bridge B Performance in the third-day scenario

Rank Overall Performance

Captain Good

OOW Good

Cadet Moderate to good

Lookout Poor

Wheelman Excellent

Overall bridge team performance The bridge team showed some

improvement after observing bridge A

practice.

155
8.6. Summary

The BRMs course and the simulator experiments helped assess the effectiveness of the

bridge resources management integrated into the bridge operation activities as it

demonstrated positive performance and skill improvement. Reactions of both groups were

compared to see the effect of the new course, which included the rating and cadets,

compared to routine procedures.

The goal of this study was to validate the implementation of BRM on the whole bridge team

member. The purpose is to improve navigational safety by utilising teamwork,

communication, SA and decision-making skills. The full mission navigation simulator helps

to accomplish the prepared scenarios to evaluate the quality of the bridge team's

performance. The experiments included two groups (A & B), with each group containing one

captain, one officer of the Watch (OOW), one Cadet/Pilot, one lookout and one helmsman.

Group A performed the experiments by applying the new methods and technics, which were

explained and taught in the new course. Group B performed the watch by applying routine

procedures, which were taught in their maritime education. The course focused on enhancing

the safety culture on the bridge, which is essential for every condition in a way that improves

the performance and does not affect the safety of navigation. In order to maintain the

course's objectiveness, the details of the scenarios were not made available to both teams

until they were in the simulator. The experiments included four different scenarios: open-

water navigation, Master-Pilot exchange (Berthing/Unberthing), Restricted visibility and

Emergency situations. The two groups were compared based on the following indicators:

Situational Awareness, Lookout Quality, Communication, Leadership, Teamwork and

Decision-Making and Taking action time.

The evaluation of the experiments showed a promising result for the new course. The first

scenario comprised open-water navigation condition, and the analysis of the general

156
performance of both groups demonstrated that there is no significant difference between

Group A and Group B because their experience and competence are similar. The second

scenario comprised master-pilot exchange, and the analysis of the general performance of

both groups demonstrated that the performance of Group A was significantly better

compared to Group B. The third scenario comprised the restricted visibility and emergency

situation condition. The analysis of the general performance of both groups demonstrated

that Group A's performance was better compared to Group B, which also performed well

after observing Group A's performance.

Group B did not take the normal BRM course due to the faculty’s policy, which will affect

their overall performance, and therefore the result might change accordingly.

Overall, the bridge team performance for the participants for group A and B, all of them are

cadets, was noticeable in their practice on the first-day training, which was the effect of the

BRMs course did not appear clearly. However, on the second and third day, teamwork,

sharing situational awareness, the group’s decision-making, and sharing decisions for group

A have enhanced their performance level significantly, which could be comparable to

OOW’s level.

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 9. Discussion

9.1. Chapter Overview

This chapter presents the outcomes generated within this thesis, along with a demonstration

of how the research aim and objectives have been achieved. Also, the limitations of the study

are given with the general discussion on the difficulties encountered. Finally,

recommendations for future research are made.

9.2. Achievement of Research Aim and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to enhance navigational safety through an increase in

situational awareness and teamwork in the bridge, which been achieved by executing the

given objectives in Chapter 2 and details are outlined below:

• To review the literature on situational awareness and sharing among the bridge team

members.

A general critical review on situational awareness and distributing it among a team was

performed to cover many sectors such as psychology, aviation and maritime industries, as

presented in Chapter 3. Also, it covered the effect of human and organizational factors on

maritime accidents, which is found that more than 80% of maritime accidents occurred due

to many human and organizational factors categories. Accordingly, the critical review

identified the need for a novel bridge resource management course, elements, and

assessment to improve the bridge team members' performance. The review showed that the

bridge team faces many potential hazards during the navigational watch and responsibilities

that are hard to achieve by a single watchkeeper due to the human mental load capabilities,

leading to losing the individual/team SA. Moreover, as far as the maritime experiments

research on the full-mission ship bridge simulator is concerned, researchers had some

limitations, including conducting experiments using a desktop-based simulator rather than a

158
full-mission simulator; seafarer participant in experiments had only theoretical knowledge

but no experience with simulator environments. These limitations affect the quality of the

experiments, and it influences the performance of the participants’ duty in the bridge. This

was covered in chapter 3.

• Creating a maritime accidents database to identify the key factors that led to losing

the bridge teams' situational awareness by analysing previous accident reports.

Many research studies analysed maritime accidents to find that the leading cause is human

and organizational factors. Therefore, more than 200 accident reports, which were reported

between 2007-2017, were collected from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB),

Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Transportation Safety Board of Canada

(TSBC). This enabled the author to carry out an investigation and review the lack of

situation awareness by the bridge team members, including the key deficiencies in these

accidents in Chapter 5.

• To develop a questionnaire for crew members to capture the gaps with their attitudes

and teamwork towards the safe practice of bridgework activates and develop a

benchmark by distributing this questionnaire amongst different shipping companies.

These objectives were achieved under the navigational safety for crew members section that

was presented in Chapter 4. A questionnaire to capture the issues with the situational

awareness of crew members was developed based on the analysed maritime accidents and

distributed online to the seafarers. This questionnaire allowed the authors to gauge seafarers’

attitude towards working as a team in the bridge and optimise the necessary level of SA to

ensure navigational safety. The collected feedback from 158 participants was analysed, and

appropriate action plans were proposed as provided in Chapter 6.

159
 • Develop a new course for all bridge team members to enhance the good practice of

Bridge Resource/Team Management (BRM/BTM) by applying communication and

sharing situational awareness and knowledge of the surrounding situation among the

bridge team members.

The differences exist in the contents of different bridge resource management courses

offered by many maritime institutions around the world. Therefore, attending BRM courses

revealed that BRM courses offered are fragmented and non-standardised in the maritime

sector as the maritime sector fails to provide the same structured and quality of contents to

educate the seafarers. Bridge Resource Management for Seafarers (BRMs) has been

developed and implemented to confirm whether survey results are in line with the gaps

found with BRM courses as given in Chapter 7.

• Validate and test the new course in a full-mission simulator environment by

performing a comparative assessment of the regular bridge working practice and the

new course approach proposed by the author.

The new BRMs course and assessment enhanced the bridge team performance positively

during the bridge operation activities and led to an improvement of navigational safety, as

proven by the analyses of two groups of seafarers. The new BRMs course enhanced the

bridge team's ability to cope with teamwork, communication, SA and decision-making

challenges, as given in Chapter 7.

9.3. Novelty

The main novelty achieved within this PhD thesis is given below:

Even though the STCW encourages the implementation of effective education and training

for all seafarers, it does not provide structured guidance for the maritime institutions to do

so. However, Numerous maritime institutions applied different methods and techniques to

160
address their courses in a different aspect to achieve the main aim. Also, a considerable

number of accidents was caused by the lack of the bridge team's SA. Therefore, the

navigational safety for crew member assessment was established to enhance navigational

safety through increasing the situational awareness and teamwork in the bridge by designing

a BRM course for all seafarers who have a duty in the bridge not just for masters and OOWs

To the best of the author’s knowledge, such a comprehensive assessment of collecting

accident report and analyzing it, developing a questionnaire to highlight the gap of bridge

team performance and attending BRM courses in different institutions has not been

performed within the maritime sector yet. The developed BRMs course approach by the

author is based on a review of maritime accidents, a questionnaire survey among the

seafarers and attending various BRM courses. This enabled the author to identify the

weakness of current BRM courses, and the knowledge gaps among the seafarers with regard

to the BRM, and bridge team interaction issues between the team members, especially for

those who did not take the BRM course while they perform their duty on the bridge. The

objective of the assessment method, such as (BRMs course and validation through a bridge

simulator), is to provide continuous navigational safety improvement with the help of

structured improvement methodologies, including the selection of KPIs deployed for bridge

team performance measurement and monitoring in the navigational training exercises. The

BRMs course outcomes indicate that all bridge team members should participate in such a

course to enhance their teamwork efficiency and increase the team situational awareness to

help each other if someone lost it. Therefore, the developed methodological assessment

within this PhD thesis provides a significant contribution to maritime education required to

enhance navigation safety to reduce maritime accidents.

161
9.4. Limitations

The limitations of this study are given below:

• Enhancing navigational safety levels among the entire bridge team members requires

an excessive amount of time and effort, so the efficacy of the improvement

methodologies may not be achievable within the project duration. The number of

participants in the questionnaire was 158, which was acceptable. However, the

accurateness of the result would be improved as more feedbacks will be received.

Also, conducting a pilot study for the questionnaire and enhancing the questionnaire,

if necessary, before distributing it among the participants will enhance the outcome

in this study to achieve a higher reliability score than what we have with the current

results.

• The Bridge Resource Management for Seafarers (BRMs) course require all different

ranks of bridge team members such as master, pilots, OOWs, rating and cadets to

take the proposed course. This will measure the course's effectiveness among the

whole bridge team members. However, during the validation work performed in this

thesis, The participants were only the cadet, some of whom could be considered as

ratings due to the basic knowledge that they got as they finished one year in the

college and were taught the course. Due to their duties onboard ships or current

restrictions such as COVID-19, it was not suitable for other ranks, such as master,

OOW, Pilot and rating, to participate in the course. Outcomes of the validation case

study may have affected the outcome because of the absence of seafarer’s experience

with different ranks. This appeared clearly in some decision-making and sharing SA

between the experiment team. Therefore, it would be beneficial to repeat such tests

with the correct ranks of seafarers as a future study.

• The accidents review should have included more analysis of the reports issued by the

Saudi Maritime Board. However, the permissions and the documentation required by
162
 the authority could not be obtained in time. While the accident reports collected from

ATSB and TSBC were suitable to conduct the analysis of the accidents at this stage,

it can be extended to data from other administrations in future studies.

9.5. Future Work

Based on the limitations given in before, recommendations for future research are listed

below:

• More observation studies should be placed to record each bridge team member's

practice and performance, which needs to utilize a developed Key Performance

Indicator (KPI) to detect their efficiency towards BRM during the navigational

watch.

• Include different ranks in the new course and record their interactions to measure the

effectiveness of sharing SA and teamwork.

• Create global accidents database that focused on the accidents that occur due to the

lack of bridge team performance as an individual and team by following a Human

factors taxonomy.

• More objective assessment criteria and exams for all seafarers who participate in the

bridge activities.

• Utilise human factor taxonomy to capture the deficiencies of SA on the bridge.

• Attending the HELM course to highlight the differences between HELM and BRM.

9.6. Chapter Summary

In this chapter, a summary of the achievement of the research aims and objectives has been

presented. Also, the limitations and recommendations for future research have been made.

163
10. Conclusion
Prevention of accidents through human factors has only recently gained the deserved

attention, as the maritime community has realised that despite all the increased safety

standards and technological developments, accidents are still occurring, and the system is not

resilient to errors at various levels. Furthermore, it has been often ignored that the human

element of the maritime system has not been evolving in the same way that technology is

developing as the physical capabilities and human limitations are overlooked. The measures

which were created by the IMO through the International Safety Management (ISM) Code,

international regulations for safe vessel operation, and the training and certification of the

crew members regulated by the International Convention of Standards of Training

Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) was not a simple task. However, after

analysing more than 200 accident reports of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch

(MAIB), Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Transportation Safety Board of

Canada (TSBC), it was revealed that these accidents were caused by a lack of situational

awareness and failures of bridge team members. This fact motivates the author of this thesis

to work for a solution that could enhance navigational safety by increasing situational

awareness and teamwork in the bridge to minimise the consequences of future SA linked

issues.

This thesis examined the MAIB, ATSB and TSBC accident reports for commercial vessels

which were involved in accidents between 2007-2017 as a result of lack of situational

awareness. It was found that eleven human-related factors, which included Communication,

Wrong / miss use the available information, Poor bridge team act, Wrong decision making,

No information, No lookout/ inactive lookout, Fatigue, Not following the COLREG rules,

Poor navigation (Practice/training), Manning and Other factors were identified as the failures

by the bridge team, as mentioned in Chapter 5. Accordingly, a questionnaire was developed

to be distributed among the seafarers to highlight the gaps in bridge team performance. As a

164
result, Bridge Resource Management for Seafarers course (BRMs) was established to cover

these gaps and to enhance the bridge team performance.

A prepared case study was used to evaluate the course's efficiency; two groups have

participated, each containing a captain, an OOW, a cadet/pilot, a lookout and a helmsman.

Group A performed the experiments by applying the new methods and technics, which were

explained and taught in the new course. Group B performed the watch by applying routine

procedures, which were taught during their education in their faculty. The study included

sailing in four different scenarios: open-water navigation, Master-Pilot exchange

(Berthing/Unberthing), Restricted visibility and Emergency situations. As a result, in the first

scenario, both groups' performance demonstrated that there is no significant difference

between Group A and Group B. In the second and third scenarios, Group A's performance

was way better compared to Group B.

In conclusion, all bridge team members should be trained and educated in a way that can

enhance their skills to ensure the safety of navigation, which can be done by taking into

account the following suggestions, observations and conclusions:

• An accident analysis should be performed to identify the reasons for accidents

caused by the bridge team's poor performance using appropriate human factors

taxonomy.

• Navigational safety can be enhanced by sharing situational awareness, leadership

and knowledge.

• BRMs can enhance the bridge team's skill, communication and eliminate the

practising of non-standard procedures.

• The BRMs assessment against the standard procedures concluded that a bridge

team's safety performance could be significantly enhanced.

165
• The simulator experiments clearly have shown that Group A, who took the BRMs

course, enhanced its performance and skills against Group B, which followed the

standard procedures.

• This research identified that all bridge members, including ratings and cadets, should

be included in the BRM training.

• The content and format of the BRM courses, which are offered around the world,

should be standardised.

166
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 Appendices

Appendix A- Situational Awareness Survey for Crew Members

Your True Opinion Is Extremely Important To Enhance the

Navigational Safety

Thank you in advance for participating in the situational awareness survey.

Your feedback is very important for my PhD research.

This survey is conducted independently by the University of Strathclyde in

collaboration with King Abdulaziz University (Faculty of Maritime Studies), to
assess the situational awareness and teamwork within the bridge team
member (master, OOW, deck cadet, lookout, wheelman and pilot). The
University of Strathclyde guarantees that:

• Survey responses are completely anonymous.

• This survey does not aim to collect any personal information from the
participants

It takes 7 to 10 minutes to complete this survey. Please try to answer the

questions accurately. For any inquiries related to this survey, please do not
hesitate to contact us via the information below:

Contact Person:

Full name: Mohammad Gommosani

Occupation: Researcher at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: 0044 744 969 8483
Address: Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean & Marine Engineering,

University of Strathclyde
Henry Dyer Building, 100 Montrose Street, Glasgow G4 0LZ, United
Kingdom
182
Demography

(Please tick the appropriate question)

a. What is your age?

☐ 18-24

☐ 25-34

☐ 35-44

☐ 45-54

☐ 55-64

☐ 65+

b. What is your gender?

☐Male

☐Female

c. What is your rank?

☐ Captain/Master

☐ Chief Officer

☐ 2nd Officer

183
☐ 3rd Officer

☐ Deck Cadet

☐ Able Seaman

☐ Ordinary Seaman

☐ Pilot

☐ Other …………………………………

d. How long have you been at sea?

☐ Less than a year

☐ 1-4 years

☐ 4-8 years

☐ More than 8 years

e. What is your nationality?

184
1. Bridge Resource Management

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Do not

Disagree Agree Know
1. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

Language/dialect

related issues

amongst bridge

members are a

threat to safety.

2. There is good ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

communication

environment in the

bridge.

3. There is no ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

difficulty of using

English as a

communication

language.

4. Operational ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

values, objectives

and targets are

effectively

communicated.

5. I always ask ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

questions if I do

not understand or

185
unsure about any

information or

instructions were

given to me.

6. I can report ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

anything related to

safe navigation

without fearing

from the

consequences

especially at night.

7. I can establish/ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

understand any

communication

between my vessel

and others

8. I found the ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

BRM course useful

for each bridge

members.

9. The course is ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

helping me to

cooperate with

bridge members.

10. It is better to ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

186
conduct a monthly

meeting for bridge

team members.

11. Bridge ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

members should

question a higher

rank officer's/

pilot’s decision not

even when safety

is affected.

12. Whenever I see ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

a navigational

warning, I always

report it.

13. I found that the ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

BRM course

improved my

skills.

14. I use all ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

resources that

available in the

bridge to ensure

safe passage.

15. I can deal with ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

any emergency

navigational

187
situation by

myself.

16. I do risk ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

assessment when

the ship passes

through heavy

traffic areas.

17. I get the benefit ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

of other bridge

member’s

experience to make

a safe and effective

decision.

18. I found that ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

maritime

institutions are

providing different

content of BRM

course.

19. There is a ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

briefing between

bridge team before

the watch started.

Suggestions

188
 ➢ Teamwork

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Do not

Disagree Agree Know
20. I found a ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

good

atmosphere of

teamwork in

the bridge.

21. I can ask ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

other bridge

team member

when I

doubted.

22. Asking for ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

assistance can

make me look

competent.

23. There is ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

collaboration

between bridge

team members

to ensure safe

navigation.

24. I can ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

correct the

information for

189
another bridge

team member

even if he/she

higher ranks

than me.

25. I good ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

leadership can

improve the

teamwork.

Suggestions

190
3. Navigational Safety

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Do not

Disagree Agree Know
26. I found no ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

difficulty of using

navigational

equipment to

ensure safe

passage.

27. I rely on ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

electronic

navigation

equipment for a

safe passage.

28. I am confident ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

that I can operate

the navigational

equipment within

my area of

responsibility

safely.

29. I fully ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

understand my

responsibilities for

my duty in the

bridge.

191
30. Other bridge ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

members

encourage me to

report unsafe

events.

31. I receive ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

feedback about my

compliance to the

safety of

navigation.

Suggestions

192
4. Involvement

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Do not

Disagree Agree Know
32. Bridge ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

members are

encouraged to

improve

navigational

safety.

33 I am ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

consulted

about, and

invited to get

involved in

changes that

affect

teamwork in

the bridge.

34. I have ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

sufficient

control of my

work to

ensure it is

always

completed

safely.

193
35. Mistakes ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

are corrected

without

punishment

and treated as

a learning

opportunity.

Suggestions

194
5. Situation Awareness

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Do not

Disagree Agree Know
36. Watch ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

hand-overs are

thorough and

not hurried.

37. I can easily ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

maintain my

situational

awareness

during my

watch.

38. A good ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

manning in the

bridge can

improve the

situational

awareness

39. There is ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

sufficient time

allocated for

the hand-overs

when joining

the ship.

40. We are ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

195
sharing the

same

situational

awareness in

the bridge.

41. I can easily ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

predict what

will happen

during my

watch.

42. Following ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

the COLREGs

can improve

my situational

awareness.

43. I know that ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

fatigue can

affect my

situational

awareness.

Suggestions

196
Appendix B- BRM Course Form

Name of the centre: …………………… Date: / /20

Course period: ……………… days day no.: 1/2/3/4/5

Lecturer position(s) and experience: ………………………………

Simulator Real Accidents Educational scenarios☐ Other☐ …………….

scenario ☐

Teaching method Normal☐ workshops☐ Other☐ …………….

Methods used to increase the SA:

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………………..……………

Other comment:

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………

197
Appendix C- IMO outline for BRM course

Taken from (VALIDATION OF MODEL TRAINING COURSES) SUB-

COMMITTEE ON STANDARDS OF TRAINING AND WATCHKEEPING
44th session Agenda item 3 STW 44/3/5, 25 January 2013

1. Demonstrates the allocation, assignment and prioritisation of resources.

2. Demonstrates the importance of ensuring the effectiveness of communication

between bridge team members.

3. Explains the importance of ensuring the effectiveness of information exchange with

pilot.

4. Demonstrates effective information exchange.

5. Defines “situational leadership”.

6. Explains the relationship between assertiveness and leadership.

7. Explains the importance of challenge and response.

8. Explains the importance of obtaining and maintaining situational awareness.

9. Demonstrates appropriate challenges and responses.

10. Demonstrates the ability to maintain situational awareness in complex situations.

198