New role of GNSS in the Safety of maritime navigation

• Autores: Rosario La Pira
• Localización: Revista del Instituto de Navegación de España: publicación técnica cuatrimestral de navegación marítima, aérea, espacial y terrestre, ISSN-e 1578-6064, Nº. 37, 2010, págs. 17-25
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • IMO introduces the issue of maritime safety as follows: Shipping is perhaps the most international of all the world's great industries - and one of the most dangerous. Ship casualties and incidents can result in serious loss of life and pollution of the marine environment as modern ship can carry over 5,000 people and over 500,000 tons of petroleum.

    Maritime safety is of paramount importance in the new role of GNSS. Increased safety at sea should be considered while taking into account the most critical issue of supplying the master of a vessel and those responsible for the safety of shipping ashore with modern, proven tools to make marine navigation and communications more reliable thereby reducing errors, especially those with the potential to cause equipment damage, pollution harm to the marine nvironment, injury and loss of life. Maritime safety in this case means to address the particular needs of enhancing the prevention of collisions and groundings. According to statistics, the number of ship collisions and groundings has not appreciably changed over the last ten years despite the growing technology. Furthermore, it should be considered that there are serious concerns about the secondary disasters resulting from collisions and groundings, for example, loss of human life and oil spills.

    The EMSA statistics show that 762 vessels were involved in 715 accidents (sinkings, collisions, groundings, fires/explosions and other significant accidents) in and around EU waters during 2007. The majority of vessels in the 2007 EMSA survey were involved in collisions and contacts (around 40%) and roundings (around 26%), while sinkings accounted for around 7% of the total and fires and explosions for around 12% (other 15%). It is acknowledged that there is evidence to show that the great majority of accidents have a human error component, and also that seafarers often make mistakes under difficult circumstances (eg bad weather, geographical/infrastructure restrictions, fatigue, task overload, training shortcomings, etc.). There are numerous examples of collisions and groundings that might have been avoided had there been suitable input into the navigation decisionmaking process.