Risk based methodology for safety improvements in ports

With the introduction of the Formal Safety Assessment in the International Maritime Organisation decision making process regarding new regulations, an d the recent tanker disasters resulting in extensive oil pollution, the pub lic and political pressure to improve safety in ports and the shipping indu stry has increased. Considering that some kind of Safety Report (case) regu lations related to marine operations have not been established, and that th e ports and shipping industry are at the onset of safety regimes utilised i n other industries, a step wise methodology for safety improvements in port s has been developed. In the first step, the hazard identification and the qualitative risk assessment is carried out to establish hazard barriers whi ch are or should be in place to prevent hazards from being released; the co ntrols for managing these hazards are then developed and integrated into th e Safety Management System (SMS), In the second and optional step, the area s of high risk are investigated in detail and the approach for risk quantif ication discussed. The use of the quantitative risk assessment results is i llustrated in two examples. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reser ved.