Bridge Standards

Guidance

The main guidance documents are:

ISO 8468 Ship’s bridge layout and associated equipment - Requirements and guidelines

MSC/Circ.982, 20 December 200 Guidelines on Ergonomic Criteria for Bridge Equipment and Layout

A.408.05.08.055.02: Rationale for SOLAS Regulation V/15 template. (http://www.he-alert.com/documents/published/HE00130.pdf)

A408.05.08.055.003: Pocket card for day-to-day decisions. (http://www.he-alert.com/documents/published/HE00075.pdf)

A408.05.08.055.004: Short form template for minor change. (http://www.he-alert.com/documents/published/HE00080.pdf)

A408.05.08.055.005: Submission template for major refits and new builds. (http://www.he-alert.com/documents/published/HE00085.pdf)

The Draft IACS document UI SC 181 Bridge Design, Equipment Arrangement and Procedures (BDEAP). Available as part of the UISC download from the IAC website http://www.iacs.org.uk/index1.htm

ABS Guidance notes on Ergonomic Design of Navigation Bridges, October 2003. At the ABS website http://www.eagle.org

Regulation

The regulation of bridge design is evolving. SOLAS Chapter V was completely revised in 2002. The Regulations can be found at

http://www.empa-pilots.org/solas5/

Of particular interest is Regulation V/15, which was intended to be a new comprehensive regulation, addressing some of the most fundamental human element concerns relating to the ship’s bridge.

The IMO Human Element Working Group report to MSC78 included the following observations.

Following consideration of the draft UI181 and a submission from Korea, the Human Element Working Group then reviewed the seven aims in SOLAS regulation V/15 and identified certain issues of an operational nature, which would also have to be addressed:

.l When considering the aim of promoting effective and safe bridge resource management, a design consideration should be to minimize the opportunity for a single person error resulting in risk or damage to the vessel. As integrated bridge systems become more automated, control loops become shorter and could eliminate crosschecking and intervention by another. For example, even with both the master and pilot on the bridge, only the officer with his/her hands on the control is the decision loop. Since no orders are uttered, the other officer does not have an opportunity to cross check or intervene. The control loop is the mind of the conning officer directly to his hand. Other developments in this area are links from route planning to way points to track control etc.

.2 Guidance should be developed for bridge watch alarms and general area of alarm management should be developed in the context of the INS standards

.3 When introducing new technology on the bridge MSC/Cir.1091 should be taken into account.

.4 The number of personnel necessary to carryout duties on the bridge as well as training for bridge resource management should be considered.

The group considered the use of risk based approach for attesting conformance to the SOLAS regulation V/15 through the use of a set of templates developed by the European Union project ATOMOS, which permit analyses undertaken for previous bridge design decisions to be re-used to the extent that is appropriate, retaining the advantages of standard bridge designs to owners and operators. The group agreed that the templates developed by the ATOMOS project provide an alternative approach to demonstrate compliance with SOLAS regulation V/15 covering human element issues in a wider prospective. The group also agreed that further consideration of this alternative approach might be needed at a later stage. Taking into account the above, the group felt there was no need to develop a new instrument to demonstrate compliance with SOLAS regulation V/15.

-- BrianSherwoodJones - 16 Jul 2005
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