Human performance in the maritime industry

The traditional approach to the study of human factors in the maritime work domain is the analysis of accidents. These analyses could provide valuable information, but they are not sufficient in the attempt to capture the causal relationship between performance shaping factors and human performance in the everyday routine work. Another and more suitable approach to the study of human factors everyday routine work is the quasi-experimental field study where variations in performance (for example attention) can be observed as a function of natural variations in performance shaping factors (for example workload). In the present study it is demonstrated how these natural variations of workload very easily can be observed as a function of the different stages or phases of a voyage on one out of four selected Ro-Ro ferries in regular service. A very easy method is also suggested for the measurement of crew attention through the assessment of communication on the bridge of the ship. When these methods were applied in a pilot study which assessed the relationship between workload and attention some interesting mechanisms were identified. These findings could lead to development of hypotheses about the causal relationship between workload and attention, and the hypotheses could by tested by means of quasi-experimental field studies as suggested in this paper.