The severity of shipboard communication failures in maritime emergencies: A risk management approach

Radio communications is a critical aspect of safe ship operations, especially in emergency conditions. For a ship, its radio communication efficiency is crucial for enforcing contingency plans in an emergency. Otherwise, rescue operations may be very challenging especially in oceans. Thus this study proposed a methodology identifying the probability of a ship in distress to have a failure to certain radio equipment. The methodology could be a valuable tool for coastal states to improve their contingency plans. The methodology involves common criteria in determining the risk factors of identifying a ship with radio communication failures. These factors are based on frequency analysis of 392 ships with radio equipment malfunctions with the means of Analysis Of Variances (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests. It was found that ships of certain characteristics, such as type and size, frequently have radio communication failures. On the contrary, the classification society and flag state of a ship were not deterministic factors. Furthermore, as essential parts of the research methodology, fuzzy sets and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) were used, to evaluate the severity of hazards to search and rescue operations, due to radio failures. Eventually, a case study was carried out, showing the potentials of the proposed methodology.