Assessment of the Impact of Seafarers' Professional Experience on the Perception of Risk Factors from the Perspective of Polish Container Ships Crews Members

Abstract

Safety of navigation is the important issue especially related to the dynamically developing container shipping. The main purpose of the article is to demonstrate the results of research on the perception of risk factors by seafarers working on container ships in terms of their professional experience. The ranking of risk factors considering their impact on the safety of container shipping has been created. An additional goal of the research was to acquire the knowledge on ships crews members' assessment of the impact of the human factor on the safety of navigation, including factors related to the organization of seafarers' work (systemic aspects) and those directly resulting from the operations carried out on ship. The assessment of risk factors affecting the navigation safety was performed from the perspective of Polish crew members working on container ships. The research was carried out with the use of an empirical study questionnaire. 161 seafarers' opinions were analyzed. On the basis of the created risk factors ranking analysis, it was found that seafarers perceive the human factor, and consider both the systemic and the work-related aspects having the greatest impact on the safety of container shipping. Moreover, the conducted non-parametric Pearson chi-square independence test proved the hypothesis that assessments of the five highest rated risk factors, reviewed by studied young and experienced professional groups of seafarers, didn’t differ significantly.