Human reliability analysis of the shipboard oil pollution emergency plan using the HEART-CRITIC hybrid method

Abstract

Ship-source marine oil pollution continues to pose risks to the United Nations' sustainable development goal of reducing marine pollution in the context of life below water. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the prevention of failures in emergency response to oil pollution from ships by analysing possible human errors that may be encountered in the implementation steps of the shipboard oil pollution emergency plan (SOPEP) and thus minimising the damage. In the study, after identifying 19 tasks within the scope of SOPEP that the crew should perform in an emergency, the risks of these tasks were calculated by using the human error assessment and reduction technique (HEART), one of the human reliability analysis techniques, in combination with the criteria importance through inter-criteria correlation (CRITIC) technique. The findings indicate that the riskiest tasks are determining the actions required to assess the nature of the incident (A1), checking the stability of the ship and calculating the damaged stability (B10), deciding on the need for towing (B6), fire control and assessing the possible fire risk (B8), and quantifying the amount of oil leaking overboard (B5) respectively. The study highlights the development of simulation-based pollution response training on ships for a smoother implementation of SOPEP, which sets the framework for the first response in case of a ship-source oil pollution emergency, and stricter supervision of SOPEP drills that are not performed due to heavy workload. This study, which is a pioneer in the literature in terms of the topic it examines and the methodology it presents, is thought to assist maritime environment safety professionals, coastal safety managers, and shipping companies in developing policies and actions to achieve the objective of protecting the marine environment from maritime pollution.