A Hybrid Methodology for Human Reliability Assessment in Maritime Cargo Accidents

Abstract

The maritime cargo shipment is always looking for implementing new safety measures to reduce the cargo accident rates. However, it is challenging to find the root cause that led to a specific cargo accident. The accidents result from a complex chain of events, where there is usually more than one factor solely responsible for maritime cargo accidents. The present contribution aims to find the causal factor of the accidents and predict human error probability after the accidents using the hybrid methodology. The hybrid methodology that uses this study to assess human error of maritime cargo accidents is Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART) – 4M and TOPSIS with Technique for Risk Perception. The HEART methodology assumes that any predicted reliability of task performance may be modified according to the presence of identified Error Promoting Conditions (EPCs). A technique for Risk Perception decomposes a task into sub-task steps for which quantification data are provided. The corresponding results show that the most common situation that maritime cargo accidents occurred due to the man factor is during the loading and unloading process.