Implementation of Statistics in Container Ship Safety Inspection

Abstract

The IMO developed the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), which is a systematic and formalized risk assessment methodology that supports decision-making within the IMO. The main objective of the FSA is to provide detailed information on a ship’s current level of safety and highlight the need for any necessary changes. In the European Union, a comprehensive FSA was conducted primarily for container ships under a project named SAFEDOR [2], which took place from 2005 to 2009. The project’s results were submitted to IMO through MSC83/INF.8, utilizing data on container ship fleets and casualties from 1993 to 2004 for the investigation.

During the COVID period, there has been a significant increase in demand for container ships. In 2020, the global container fleet capacity expanded by almost 3%, reaching 281,784,000 deadweight tons (dwt), while container trade experienced a contraction of 1.1%, totaling 149 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) according to UNCTAD [13].

This study aims to enhance and evaluate the safety performance of all container ships by primarily focusing on integrating the IMO-introduced FSA into vessel inspections. This integration will enable the measurement of all container ships globally using the same scale.