1. ECDIS and safety Dr. Phillip Belcher
INTERTANKO Navigation, Safety, Ports and Terminal Subcommittee - work agenda - ECDIS nautical safety issues
Dr. Phillip Belcher
Monday 6 June 2016
ENOC Seminar

2. Structure
INTERTANKO
ECDIS issues
Cyber Risk Management
Moving forward

3. INTERTANKO
Members
Lead the continuous improvement of the tanker industry’s performance     
Strive to achieve the goals of:
ZERO fatalities
ZERO pollution
ZERO detentions
Deliver the highest quality services to meet their stakeholders’ expectations
Promote the availability and use of personnel with the best marine skills and competencies 

4. Members working for Members

5. Accident rates

6. 99.9998% of oil transported safely
Accidental oil pollution from tankers
000 ts spilt
bn tonne miles
% of oil transported safely
Source: ITOPF/Fearnleys/ Lloyd’s List Intelligence *2010s = projection based on 6 years

7. Tanker incidents (all types and sizes)
Number incidents
1,000t oil spilt
MARPOL 78
OPA 90
Single Hull phase out
Place of Refuge

8. Stubborn Human Element
We still have accidents and incidents
Collisions
Groundings
E-Navigation aims to assist
When things go wrong:
focus on People
Safety culture

9. Human element Humans make mistakes ECDIS units allow mistakes to occur
E-Navigation will add to the complexity
More information must not mean more complex solutions
Require simpler systems to operate, with the added information

10. Human element continued
High Workload situations
Ability to assist the navigator more actively in situations when the workload is high.
Navigation assistance – fuzzy logic, decision assistance
Alarms.... Do they warn us when we actually need them?
Fatigue and Complacency
A number of accidents has been due to the low workload and complacency
Need the ability to make a navigator to take more active participation

11. Route to complacency Professional skill They can handle any outcome
It never goes wrong
Absence of consequences
Blind to risk
Stopped people from thinking
Technology provides a veneer of security

12. Combating complacency
Seafarer buy in
Encourage feedback
Avoidance of routine
Increase surveillance
Correct poor performance
Wean officers off reliance on technology

13. ECDIS issues

14. Safety contour considerations
The lack of flexibility with the safety contour in ECDIS is a problem. Safety contour dictated by the safety depth settings and always defaults
10 metres
5 metres
5.6 m
Safety depth settings
The safety contour is a crucial feature of the ECDIS, we have seen that for many seafarers appropriate safety contour settings are considered a “nice to have” and not a “must have”. Many ECDIS users leave their safety contour set at the factory default of 30 metres and never change it, this causes many alarms, indeed many spurious alarms are caused by improper setting of the safety contour.
Another major bug bear of a lot seafarers is the lack of flexibility associated with the safety contour. Since the safety contour is dictated by the safety depth settings and always defaults “up”, i.e. if you set a safety depth of 5.6 metres the safety contour would automatically select the next available contour which would be 10 metres.
This is what you can see on the left of this slide, the actual 5.6m contour is depicted in red. ACTION
In the right hand image you can see the image as it would appear with a ten metre safety contour ACTION
Here is where the 5.6 metre contour should be, you can see that there is significant sea room between the 5.6 metre contour and the 10 metre contour ACTION as demonstrated by this red sector, you can also see that the track in black would now be crossing the safety contour and all because of the rigid set up of the contour system.
It is also our experience that there does not appear to be the understanding of just how critical the safety contour settings are for the overall use of ECDIS. We have seen plenty of incidents were the safety contour was not properly set up. This comes back to the issue of context in training, are the cadets and officers attending IMO 1.27 ECDIS courses being taught how critical the safety contour actually is………….lets look at an example of what we are talking about.

15. Safety Depth and Safety contour related changes
Although the upcoming S-52 Ed (PL 4.0.1) will provide significant improvement, there are still flaws.
Example: It is ONLY a safety contour setting that is taken into consideration for all grounding alerts. Spot soundings are NOT used in S-52 Ed (PL 4.0.1) for any alerts unless they are shallower than the surrounding depth area (e.g. 8,5 m in depth area from 10 to 20m), as set out in the lower right image

16. CATegories of Zone Of Confidence (CATZOC)
All US ENC charts have the lowest category i.e. “U” = unassessed
Some companies have implemented an increased the safety margin with set safety margins.
If we would do that or even increase the UKC marginally it would drastically decrease cargo intake capabilities in US ports.
ENC experts agree that approved ENC’s by HO’s have much higher accuracy than any paper/raster chart ever had.
INTERTANKO is developing a generic Risk Assessment for when a ship calls a port with CATZOC “U”.
Below: The depth accuracy of the different CATZOC in ENC’s.

17. Manual fixing on ECDIS All ECDIS must be able to:
- Plot manually obtained bearing and distance lines
- Calculate the resulting position of own ship
- Use position as origin for dead reckoning
These standards are vague
- How long should it take to plot a fix?
- How many actions by user?
Crucial for cross checking GNSS or if GNSS fails
Officers struggle with using this function due to complexity
Despite what many believe about ECDIS it is possible and indeed desirable to plot manual fixes on ECDIS from time to time. An officer using ECDIS needs to plot the ships position because it is necessary to confirm the positional information from the GNSS. It is also necessary for crew to know how to plot a position on ECDIS in case there is a total failure of GNSS.
ECDIS performance standards do state that ECDIS should be able to plot an LOP derived from an external source, bearing or range and generate a DR position from that information.
In our experience mariners rarely use or practice this function and this could be due to the complexity of the manual fixing systems on some ECDIS’s or because of a lack of training.
The performance standards lack detail on how long it should take to plot the fix and how many actions the user will have to undertake to do so. Some manufacturers have created fixing systems which require a lot of complex actions to be undertaken and are a lot slower than fixing on a paper chart.
This we believe goes a long way to explain why crew doesn’t often use this function, it would be good to see performance standards which are more specific on details to ensure that the fixing functions are quicker and easier than a paper chart
Coincidentally there was an article in the February edition of the Nautical Institute’s Seaways magazine written by a chief officer who questioned whether ECDIS was ready for the seafarer. In his article he describes how plotting an anchorage position given to them by Port Control took 15minutes. Something that would have taken 15sec on a paper chart. By the time they had finally plotted the position on the ECDIS they had nearly past it! I accept that practise plays a role, but still…

18. Software maintenance
“ECDIS that is not updated for the latest version of IHO Standards may not meet the chart carriage requirements as set out in SOLAS regulation V/ ”
31 July 2017 existing ECDIS must be compliant with new IHO standards and be aligned with publication of IEC 61174
- S-52 Specifications for chart content and display aspects of ECDIS
- S-63 IHO Data Protection Scheme
- S-64 IHO Test Data Sets for ECDIS
3. How many mariners are aware of this dead line and its implications
Many mariners are not familiar with the following:
“ECDIS that is not updated for the latest version of IHO Standards may not meet the chart carriage requirements as set out in SOLAS regulation V/ ”
For a lot of mariners, the idea of needing to update the software of a piece of navigational equipment is an alien one, since they don’t do so for other pieces of equipment such as radar or GMDSS. It is crucial that the software is updated to ensure that the ECDIS satisfies SOLAS carriage requirements.
Is this point given much emphasis during ECDIS courses? It would be very interesting exercise to see how many mariners know about the recent changes in software and what the implications are for the failure to update it.
Again software maintenance is an “ECDIS life skill” which needs to be given the proper emphasis on ECDIS training courses.

19. Cyber Risk Management

20. IMO MSC 96 outcome
New interim Guidelines On Maritime Cyber Risk Management
Issued very shortly
High level guidance
Industry guidelines provide detail

21. Industry guidance
Identify
Protect
Detect
Respond
Recover

22. Vulnerabilities
Broadband internet
Automatic transmissions
Software updates
Chart corrections
The USB stick

23. Summary INTERTANKO Nautical sub-committee has a broad agenda
Need ECDIS guidelines that cover the needs of the tanker owners
E-Navigation will add to the ECDIS complexity.
Cyber Risk Management a key in e-Nav
INTERTANKO will monitor this development.

24. Thank you Phillip.Belcher@intertanko.com
Port of Gotheburg, Sweden: Photo: Johan Gahnström
More information,