Enhancing the safety of passenger ships

Passenger shipping has witnessed rapid scientific and technological developments in recent years while the size and capacity of ships has dramatically increased, creating new safety challenges. An EU-funded initiative addressed this important issue through the use of risk-based assessment and design methodologies that supported the EU shipbuilding industry by helping it stay ahead of its competitors in complex ship design and manufacturing.

The 'GOAL based damage stability' (GOALDS) project targeted the enhancement of the stability and safety of passenger ships in case of accidental flooding, in view of compelling needs to revisit existing international regulations and to further improve passenger ships’ safety standards. The main outcome of GOALDS, in which representatives of the whole spectrum of the European maritime industry and marine technology RTD stakeholders participated, is its contribution to the enhanced safety of maritime passenger transport.

GOALDS helped apply rational, risk-based procedures to the design of RoPax and cruise ships, a clear domain of the European shipbuilding industry. This was achieved by delivering a rational, fully validated, robust and consistent method for assessing the safety of passenger ships in case of a collision or grounding. It included improved statistics for collision and grounding damage in passenger ships, a new integrated stability standard and better survivability of hull damage. Researchers also conducted experiments and simulations of damaged sample ships in seaways, developing improved risk models for collision and grounding damage.

Project partners carried out a series of cost analyses of various risk control options (RCOs) implemented in the conceptual design of a series of sample passenger ships, created a series of innovative ship design concepts and developed a new risk-based damage stability requirement. GOALDs also cultivated a close collaboration with non-EU partners (USA, Japan) and submitted a series of results to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) with regard to safety regulations in passenger ships. In addition the project organized a series of public workshops and contributed a number of papers to peer-reviewed journals.

The project complemented past work of the successful EU-FP4 funded HARDER project, which contributed decisively to the development and the adoption of the new harmonized damage stability regulations pertaining to all types of dry cargo and passenger ships (SOLAS 2009). GOALDs will benefit the entire international maritime community in view of the need for improved passenger ship safety, particularly with regard ultra large cruise ships and some RoPax designs.

The results of the present project suggest that the required levels of survivability of passenger ships may be further increased cost effectively, while reducing significantly the risk to passengers, thus the International Maritime Organisation is expected to study in detail the current results and take action where appropriate.

Related link:
http://cordis.europa.eu