Project Horizon

Project Horizon:raising knowledge about fatigue at sea.

Introduction

Project Horizon is a major multi-partner European research study that brought together 11 academic institutions and shipping industry organisations with the agreed aim of delivering emprical data to provide a bettter understanding of the way in which watchkeeping patterns can affect the sleepiness levels of ships' watchkeepers.

Read the Project Horizon Research Report 2012 outlined in the excerpts below
Find out more about Project Horizon
View the video that includes the initial findings

Reason for research

Project Horizon was established in response to growing concern about the increased evidence of the role of fatigue and sleepiness in maritime accidents. It is also closely aligned to the FP7 (Sustainable Surface Transport 2008 RTD-1 call) aims of increased safety and security, and reduced fatalities.

The increasingly intensive nature of shipping operations means that seafarers frequently work long and irregular hours. Factors such as noise, vibration, sailing patterns, port calls, cargo handling and other activities can all reduce the ability of seafarers to gain quality sleep during their rest periods.

The project was established to:

define and undertake scientific methods for measurement of fatigue in various realistic seagoing scenarios using bridge, engineroom and cargo simulators
determine the effects of watch systems and components of watch systems on fatigue
capture empirical data on the cognitive performance of watchkeepers working within those realistic scenarios
assess the impact of fatigue on decision-making performance
develop a tool for evaluating potential fatigue risk of different watch systems using mathematical models
determine arrangements for minimising risks to ships and their cargoes, seafarers, passengers and the marine environment

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How did it work?

Watchkeeper participant in a ship simulator.

At the heart of the project was the extensive use of ship simulators in Sweden and the UK to examine the decisionmaking and cognitive performance of officers during a range of real-life, real-time scenarios of voyage, workload and interruptions. A total of 90 experienced deck and engineer officer volunteers participated in rigorous tests at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteberg, and at Warsash Maritime Academy (WMA) at Southampton Solent University to measure their levels of sleepiness and performance during seagoing and port-based operations on bridge, engine and liquid cargo handling simulators.

The project sought to take understanding of the issues to a new level with specialist input from some world-leading transport and stress research experts. Academic experts at WMA, Chalmers and the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University (SRI) devised the simulator scenarios, setting the requirements for fatigue measurement and determining performance degradation measures for watchkeepers, and SRI analysed the results from the week-long programmes.

Finally, in response to the research findings, the Project Horizon partners have developed a fatigue management toolkit for the industry, which seeks to provide guidance to owners, operators, maritime regulators and seafarers to assist them in organising work patterns at sea in the safest and healthiest way possible.

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What are the research results?

View the video with the results

Project Horizon has undoubtedly succeeded in its core aim of delivering a more informed and scientifically rigorous understanding of the way different watchkeeping patterns at sea affect the performance of ships’ officers. The range of measurements and the high degree of realism gained through the use of simulators has provided detailed and robust data on which to assess and analyse effects. Data gained from the research is sufficiently robust to provide input to marinevalidated mathematical fatigue prediction models within a fatigue risk management system. View the video which includes an overview of the findings.

Did the participants fall asleep?

Yes. In all four of the watchkeeping sub-groups (4/8 and 6/6 at Chalmers and 6/6 deck and engineers at Warsash) there was evidence of full-blown sleep. Incidents of sleep on watch mainly occurred during night and early morning watches. At least one incident of microsleep was detected among 40% of team 1, 4/8, at Chalmers (the 0000-0400 watch), around 45% of team 1, 6/6, at Chalmers (0000-0600 watch) and around 40% for team 2, 6/6, at Chalmers (0600-1200 watch). At Warsash the rates varied from more than 20% of the 1800-0000 watch to 0% of the 0600-1200 watch. Falling asleep on the bridge is a main indicator of the effect of the watch on dangerous states of the crew. Participants in all the groups reported high levels of subjective sleepiness on the KSS scale, close to danger levels for car drivers.

Did the participants obtain enough sleep?

No. Varying degrees of sleep loss were observed, differing between the watch systems. Overall sleep duration for those on the 4/8 pattern was found to be relatively normal, with around 7.5 hours a day for those in team 1 at Chalmers and about 6 hours for team 2. Participants working 6/6 watches on 6/6 rotas were found to get markedly less sleep than those on 4/8, and data showed a clear ‘split’ sleeping pattern in which daily sleep on the 6/6 pattern was divided into two periods – one of between three to four hours and the other averaging between two to three hours.

Was performance affected?

A participant completes a reaction test.

Yes. PVT reaction time tests, carried out at the start and end of each watch showed clear evidence of a deterioration – the slowest reaction times were found at the end of night watches and among those on the 6/6 patterns.

Watchkeepers were found to be most tired at night and in the afternoon, and sleepiness levels were found to peak towards the end of night watches. The 6/6 regime was found to be more tiring than the 4/8 rotas and the ‘disturbed’ off-watch periods were found to produce significantly high levels of tiredness.

In both watch systems the disturbed off-watch period was found to have a profound effect upon levels of sleepiness. Overall, stress levels remained fairly low and did not differ significantly between the two watch systems. However, the disturbed off-watch period resulted in an immediate increase in stress levels.

Researchers noted limited variations in whole watch performance during the simulated voyages, although reduced performance on sustained attention tasks was observed. There was evidence that routine and procedural tasks tended to be carried out with little or no degradation, whilst participants appeared to find it harder to deal with novel ‘incidents’ such as collision avoidance or technical failures as the ‘voyages’ progressed.

Supervisors also noted a decline in the quality of the information being given by participants at watch handovers.

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Where do we go from here?

Project Horizon has undoubtedly achieved its principal objective of gaining a deeper and more scientifically rigorous understanding of the way in which sleepiness affects watchkeepers at sea. It was intended that the project results could be used to assist the development of ‘best practice’ standards and policies.

Analysis and assessment of the findings has enabled researchers to develop a lasting legacy, in the form of a proposed fatigue management toolkit.

This set of tools is intended to provide practical guidance for seafarers, shipowners and operators, port state and flag authorities, regulators and other relevant bodies covering:

the nature of fatigue or sleepiness at sea
pointers to aid recognition of such conditions
measures by which mitigation of them might be achieved
concrete indications how the conditions might be avoided at source and the findings of the project might be applied

Why is a fatigue management toolkit is needed?

It is recognised that shipping differs from some other transport modes in that the nature of risk exposure and the capacity to act is extremely variable. Data from Project Horizon indicates that the probability of danger at sea will be highest when night watches are combined with prior reduction of sleep opportunities, combined with passages through narrow or very densely travelled waters, or during reduced visibility.

The Project Horizon findings suggest that owners, regulators, seafarers and others should pay special attention to the potential risks in difficult waters in combination with the 6/6 watch system (because of sleep loss), night watches, the last portion of most watches (especially night watches), and watches after reduced sleep opportunity.

A variety of methods (some of which are already commonly deployed) may be used to address this potential risk, including alarm systems to alert crew before important waypoints, encouragement not to use chairs on the bridge during night watches, additional crew, training crew to recognise symptoms of fatigue, and special protection of sleep periods for watchkeepers.

The toolkit takes these precautions a step further, by using scientifically verified data to build mathematical models which can be used to predict which portions of a particular voyage may be critical from a fatigue point of view -- allowing mitigating action to be planned ahead of time.

How will a fatigue management toolkit work?

It is well known that working hours which deviate from conventional patterns (shift work, roster work, and irregular watch schedules) always entail a high probability of reduced sleep and of increased fatigue, with an ensuing accident risk. In recent years, scientists have developed mathematical models for alertness or performance prediction – and these have most notably been applied in the aviation industry.

The Project Horizon researchers have used the results of their work to develop a maritime alertness regulation version of these models – ‘MARTHA’.

The computer-based system will provide an interface with selectable watch schedules and a ‘do-it-yourself’ watch system facility. Users will be able to enter their working schedules over a six-week time window and receive predicted estimates of the most risky times and the times of highest potential sleepiness for each watch and for the whole watch schedule, as well as for time outside watch duty.

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