ECOLOGICAL INTERFACE DESIGN FOR VESSEL TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

In today's competitive cargo and public transport domain, vessel traffic systems involving world-class transport nodes like Rotterdam harbor more and more have to deal with congestions and more complex traffic flows while higher demands exist on traffic safety and efficiency. Due to these tendencies, VTS operators are confronted with high workload conditions in interaction with an automated, highly-coupled and dynamic maritime environment. The design paradigm called Ecological Interface Design is used to discuss several operator support tools. Automation is not only used to reduce workload but also to the benefit of the operator situation awareness. The ecological approach to interface design gives priority to the worker's environment and how this environment imposes constraints on the worker. This paper describes which constraints must be presented and how they must be visualized to support work in an effective and efficient way. Several presentation formats are briefly discussed to show the potential benefits of the design approach.