The Evaluation of Seafarer Fatigue as a Performance-Shaping Factor in the Maritime HRA Method

In maritime studies, seafarer fatigue has been proven to be an important risk factor that affects human performance and leads to human errors. However, in the development of human reliability analysis (HRA) for the maritime industry, few studies have taken into account fatigue as a human performance-shaping factor (PSF) and systematically evaluate seafarer fatigue using HRA methods. In this paper, 52 ship masters and officers from six shipping companies are invited to select 15 leading influential factors as sub-PSFs from the 43 fatigue relevant factors within five categories (general PSFs) published by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Next, the potential risk levels of the 15 sub-PSFs are evaluated and prioritized through a new failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) method combining a belief-based Bayesian network (BBN) and an evidence reasoning (ER) algorithm. Finally, an axiomatic analysis is used to verify the robustness and applicability of the new FMEA method within the context of seafarer fatigue evaluation. It is found that the top five sub-PSFs include sleep quality, emotion, non-day shift, shift length, and noise, and it is suggested that these sub-PSFs should be integrated into maritime HRA analysis. The results of this study can not only promote navigation safety but also facilitate the development of fatigue risk management.