Navigating with safety in confined waterways: an explorative case study

Abstract

This study explores how safe navigation is performed in restricted waterways in the North Sea from the point of view of maritime pilots. The purpose is to obtain and assess domain expert knowledge as part of an ongoing research project related to the analysis of critical factors that affect the bridge team build situation awareness while performing navigational tasks in such fairways. The study is based on the adaption of the knowledge elicitation technique of Applied Cognitive Task Analysis and ethnographic observations that were made during two sea voyages. The results indicate that the applied technique is promising for the intended analysis and can be used as input for the design of the next research phase. The findings have implications for studying safety critical tasks in the maritime domain.