Alarms Onboard Ships - AOBS

Project name: Alarm management at sea: Existing challenges and potential solutions

There are now numerous examples of maritime accident reports in which existing alarm management practices—in particular the quantity of alarms and the quality of alarm systems—have been deemed to be more of a burden than a benefit (see e.g. the Danish Maritime Accident Investigation Board’s (DMAIB) accident report for Stena Scandica 2022 and Emma Maersk 2013). This is expected to become an increasing problem with the development of green fuels, due to the chemical nature of the fuels where latency times and consequences are significantly higher. In adjacent industries, such as the nuclear power and process industries, there are already examples of international standards that set requirements for the quality of alarms, and especially the response times associated with them. Although these standards have been used for years with great success, similar standards are still lacking in the maritime industry.

Drawing on relevant alarm standards that have been developed in maritime-adjacent industries, the project will examine how alarm management practice at sea can be improved; in particular how the response time of safety actions can be used as a design criterion in the validation of alarm systems. Additionally, the project will utilise state-of-the-art full-mission simulators as an exploratory testing environment.

Project participants include Lloyd's Register, ITU, DFDS, FMS , Bluestamp and AAMS

Project timeline April 2024- ultimo 2025