Safety culture and safety management aboard tankers

The present paper focuses on safety related attitudes/culture and management aboard Norwegian-owned tankers. The data set used in this paper is part of a larger survey study of attitudes towards safety and risk at sea. During the summer and autumn of 2002, a questionnaire was distributed in a self-administered format to seafarers aboard 63 tankers owned by eight shipping companies. A total of 1158 questionnaires were collected from the tanker segment (estimated response rate 70%).The data collected from the tankers interrogated using factor analysis, and four factors were identified. Several hypotheses were tested using a General Linear Model (GLM) and post hoc tests. The results showed significant differences between ship owners, sailors’ occupations, sailors’ countries of origin and sailors’ ages, between flags/registration and between age of vessels, but not between different types of tankers.