Nikolaos P. Ventikos

An empirical analysis of IOPCF oil spill cost data

This paper reports on recent analysis of oil spill cost data assembled by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF). Regression analyses of clean-up costs and total costs have been carried out, after taking care to convert to current prices and remove outliers. In the first place, the results of this analysis have been useful in the context of the ongoing discussion within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on environmental risk evaluation criteria. Furthermore, these results can be useful in estimating the benefit of regulations that deal with the protection of marine environment and oil pollution prevention.

Disutility analysis of oil spills: Graphs and trends

This paper reports the results of an analysis of oil spill cost data assembled from a worldwide pollution database that mainly includes data from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund. The purpose of the study is to analyze the conditions of marine pollution accidents and the factors that impact the costs of oil spills worldwide. The accidents are classified into categories based on their characteristics, and the cases are compared using charts to show how the costs are affected under all conditions. This study can be used as a helpful reference for developing a detailed statistical model that is capable of reliably and realistically estimating the total costs of oil spills. To illustrate the differences identified by this statistical analysis, the results are compared with the results of previous studies, and the findings are discussed.

Incorporation of human factors into ship collision risk models focusing on human centred design aspects

This paper presents an approach that more adequately incorporates human factor considerations into quantitative risk analysis of ship operation. The focus is on the collision accident category, which is one of the main risk contributors in ship operation. The approach is based on the development of a Bayesian Network (BN) model that integrates elements from the Technique for Retrospective and Predictive Analysis of Cognitive Errors (TRACEr) and focuses on the calculation of the collision accident probability due to human error. The model takes into account the human performance in normal, abnormal and critical operational conditions and implements specific tasks derived from the analysis of the task errors leading to the collision accident category. A sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the most important contributors to human performance and ship collision. Finally, the model developed is applied to assess the collision risk of a feeder operating in Dover strait using the collision probability estimated by the developed BN model and an Event tree model for calculation of human, economic and environmental risks.

The Shipwrecks in Greece are Going Fuzzy: A Study for the Potential of Oil Pollution from Shipwrecks in Greek Waters

ABSTRACT This article deals with the development and application of a risk analysis approach regarding the importance and fate of shipwrecks in Greece. In the past few decades the potential harmful effects of wrecks and the materials and substances they carry, remaining on the sea bottom, have been realized and the issue of dealing with them has arisen. The methodology used in this article consists of three steps. The first step is to develop a dedicated database of shipwrecks in Greek waters. The second step focuses on the quasi-quantitative assessment of risk for each shipwreck individually through the introduction of implemented factors that have been modeled into the structure of a hierarchical fuzzy system. The analysis is concluded by determining the sources of uncertainty for the system and implementing an appropriate analysis to determine their relative importance. Finally, geographic information system (GIS) tools are used for the visualization of data and the analysis of results in geographic terms as well as for revealing geographic patterns and relationships.

Critical Analysis of Air Emissions from Ships: Lifecycle Thinking and Results

The authors have incorporated the life cycle thinking approach in their research activities during the past few years with the aim to conduct environmental assessments of ship air emissions from a life cycle perspective. This chapter presents some illustrative findings from this work. These include a presentation of a life cycle ship framework which considers the ship as a system that may be detailed into sub-systems for which: (a) inputs, (b) processes, and (c) outputs, are identified and elaborated. Important ship life cycle stages are built-in in this model; namely the shipbuilding stage, ship operation including major maintenance activities, and finally the stage of ship dismantling/recycling. This chapter also presents illustrative numerical results of a Life Cycle Assessment study conducted for important air emissions occurring throughout the life cycle of an ocean going ship. Finally, the chapter discusses the main difficulties observed during the period of experimenting with the Life Cycle Assessment method and some limitations of this method to sufficiently cover the case of shipping. The main issues discussed in this context are: the adaptation of the methodology to maritime transport scenarios, the system boundaries selection, the establishment of life cycle inventories and the availability of data and most importantly the impact assessment step of Life Cycle Assessment which (for the case of ships) has shown to have more difficulty and wider uncertainty than any other step of the method.

Safety in Greek coastal shipping: The role and risk of human factor revisited

The comprehensive analysis presented in this paper investigates the links and comparative assets between human factor and other factors that are important determinants of maritime transport risk. In this outline, the identification of factors, such as age and ship size, that can be statistically linked (i.e. statistical significance) to whether an accident in a passenger vessel can be attributed to human factor or other causes is addressed accordingly. This way, the role of human factor in relation to safety of Greek coastal shipping is revealed and the spotlight is able to focus on the various aspects and points that manifest the importance of human element in the maritime industry. The risk assessment of the transportation with Greek passenger ships is being used in order for the safety level of Greek coastal shipping to be adequately estimated. Moreover, the comparison between the values of risk for accidents caused by human factor and those attributed to other causes is an established way to bring to the fore the unbroken relationship between the human factor and marine accidents’ consequences. The paper is concluded with interesting insights and comments drafted through the aforementioned tasks.

Studying the marine accidents of the Aegean Sea: critical review, analysis and results

ABSTRACT This paper aims at discovering characteristics, aspects and statistical patterns of recorded maritime accidents within specific zones of the Aegean Sea. A focused database with 10 years’ accidents data has been studied on the special characteristics of the ships that had been involved. Based on this database, the paper presents results derived by statistical analysis that are able to provide valuable information about the accidents under examination in terms of type, size and other parameters of the involved ships. Two models are developed and implemented to establish a risk perspective view of maritime transport within the Aegean Sea; a stochastic Poisson function is used to determine the probability of accident occurrence for each one of the three sea zones of study. Next, a fault-like approach is explored as the basis for an alternative way of studying marine safety; in this context, a seismic-driven model is applied for the calculation of the probability of accident occurrence. To do so, the concept of energy release is used so as to develop a novel modelling approach for maritime accidents. Both models present in a systematic way the hazardous profile of maritime transport in the Aegean. The paper concludes with valuable insights.

A novel approach in risk evaluation for ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of cargo using process failure mode and effects analysis (PFMEA)

The ship-to-ship transfer (STS) of oil and oil products plays currently an important role on a worldwide scale. Usually, it refers to the transfer of cargo between seagoing ships positioned alongside each other. Although the procedure of STS transfer has become a day-to-day practice, it remains a difficult operation, which deserves special consideration. To reduce the adverse effect of a potential accident on humans as well as on the environment, a risk assessment is necessary to be done to evaluate the hazards that derive from such a difficult procedure. To this end, the process failure mode and effect analysis (PFMEA), which is under the umbrella of the traditional failure mode and effect analysis, is properly modified and applied to assess the hazards of a typical STS transfer procedure. PFMEA is based on the risk priority number with regard to each risk related to the procedure of interest by multiplying the numerical values of the severity, occurrence and detection indices. Although PFMEA is currently applied mainly to manufacturing processes, the aim of the paper was to implement this methodology to STS transfer of petroleum products. According to the study of PFMEA implementation, the petroleum cargo is the product similar to the product in a manufacturing procedure; hence, the different phases of the STS procedure are similar to the production line of the manufactured product. Moreover, proposals to eliminate the disadvantages of the implementation of PFMEA by a qualitative manner (using linguistic terms) are proposed. The objective target of this effort is to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the PFMEA in a maritime activity and therefore to address the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.

Risk assessment of ship-to-ship transfer operations based on stochastic criteria evaluation and intervally scaled importance weights

Ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of cargo operations suffers inherently from risks that can compromise the success of such operations, leading to an accident with adverse effects on human lives and the environment. A feasible way to tackle the risks of STS transfers is through the use of multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) methodologies. This paper aims to develop an MCDA model to evaluate risks of an STS transfer based on the outranking relation concept. The proposed methodology uses confidence indices to compare alternative risk scenarios on stochastic risk criteria evaluation. To do so, a team of experts evaluate the scenarios regarding three risk factors; the likelihood of a scenario to occur, the severity of the scenario and the ability to detect the risk on time. Next, fuzzy domination relation is applied to complete the ranking of the risks. Finally, robustness analysis is performed to control the models stability.

Human Fatigue: Evaluation with the Usage ofBayesian Networks

In the environment and the day-to-day operations of modern high-risk industries much of the attention tends to be (or better should be) on the performance of people; this can be justified through the acknowledgment that the competitive advantage of organizations and/or companies can be generated by Human Factors (HF), and therefore the effective adaption of best practices of Human Resource Management (HRM). Fatigue amongst workers in such industries has proved to be the outmost reason affecting their performance and the overall rating of the process. In this context, the approach described hereafter is focused on the offset of the interdependencies between aspects of HRM and the phenomena of fatigue; specifically, the implementation of Bayesian Networks (BNs) with the use of evidence(s) leads in a systematic manner to the projection and evaluation of fatigue. To this end, the developed model yields the quality of sleep and other more specific factors such as the non-disturbance of circadian rhythms as important parameters for the reliable evaluation of fatigue; hence these can be considered as significant aspects in the effort of strengthening the efficiency and safety of operations. The chapter concludes with interesting insights of the aforementioned tasks.