Improving Ship Safety and Efficiency with Proactive Use of Voyage Data Recorders

The use of Shipborne Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) in the commercial maritime industry can raise both safety and operation efficiency levels. Although it is late coming compared with aviation industries, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has recently passed the resolution A.861(20) Performance Standards for Shipborne Voyage Data Recorders. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is currently finalizing the technical specification of the VDR for type approval. Carriage requirements are now under discussion at IMO and will become a reality in the near future. While mandatory carriage requirement is still years away, some progressive shipping companies have already started to install VDR as part of an advanced Integrated Bridge System (IBS). Actual field experience shows that cost-effective VDRs can be built and maintained to meet reasonable performance requirements with today's technology. Although the primary purpose of the VDR is for accident investigation after the fact, innovative uses of the VDR by the operators both in real-time and post voyage modes have demonstrated VDRs can improve safety as well as efficiency of operations. The concept is similar to the use of flight recorder to store engine data for maintenance in the aircraft industry. This paper describes several areas of proactive use of VDRs for central alarm management, performance efficiency monitoring, heavy weather damage avoidance and seamanship skill training.

• Record URL:
  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=535AA1D66A1696C2F591461E033FEFA1?doi=10.1.1.126.902&rep=rep1&type=pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  National Transportation Safety Board

  490 L'Enfant Plaza, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20594

  International Transportation Safety Association

  Apeldoorn,   Netherlands 
• Authors:
  • Ripley, Todd
  • King, Thomas
  • Chen, Henry
• Conference:
  • Transportation Recording: 2000 and Beyond. International Symposium on Transportation Recorders
  • Location: Arlington VA, United States
  • Date: 1999-5-3 to 1999-5-5
• Publication Date: 1999

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 289-294
• Monograph Title: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Transportation Recorders. Transportation Recording: 2000 and Beyond, May 3-5, 1999, Arlington, Virginia

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alarm systems; Crash investigation; Maritime safety; Merchant seamen; Monitoring; Performance; Training; Utilization; Voyage data recorders; Weather
• Uncontrolled Terms: Efficiency; Ship damage
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Marine Transportation; Research; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01088109
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 30 2008 12:31PM