Critical incidents during dynamic positioning: operators’ situation awareness and decision-making in maritime operations

摘要

The maritime industry is increasingly becoming dependent on dynamic positioningrn(DP) systems for automated vessel station keeping. This study aimed to revealrncharacteristics of DP operators’ situation awareness (SA) and decision-making duringrncritical incidents. Information from a total of 24 critical incidents was collected fromrn13 experienced DP using the critical decision method. The results indicate that in 10rnincidents, the DP operators were unable to identify the base events (e.g. did not formrnlevel 1 SA) but were able to identify the problem (e.g. understand the situation; e.g.rnform level 2 SA). These findings indicate that the establishment of high-level SA mayrnhappen even without low-level SA. This study contributes to an improvedrnunderstanding of the development of SA and the recovery of critical incidents duringrncomplex maritime operations.