The safety of tanker operations has been monitored through the Ship Inspection Report Program (SIRE). This standard kept the operations of tankers as safe as possible through frequent hardware and management process inspections. Lately, the effectiveness of the SIRE inspections in the tanker industry has shown a stagnant trend, and adequate improvement of high safety standards is needed. Accordingly, the SIRE program is being revised to the SIRE 2.0 version with a high focus on human performance and a more human-centric approach. The transition to SIRE 2.0 brings significant changes to the tanker inspection program and is very focused on the crew’s knowledge, skills, and commitment to ensuring the safe conduct of all operations on tanker vessels. The dynamic nature of SIRE 2.0 inspection will require crew and vessel operators to be well-trained, upskilled, and updated continuously. This paper aims to examine key challenges with SIRE 2.0 implementation regarding human elements as each inspection will be different for each vessel.

Contemporary maritime industry places a significant emphasis on understanding human cognition and decision-making processes since human error is a predominant factor in over 80% of maritime accidents. With a decreasing number of crew members on ships, seafarers experience increased workloads and responsibilities, leading to a higher likelihood of errors. Eye tracking technology is a method used to monitor and record the movements of a person’s eyes in various situations. By using special glasses or cameras, eye tracking technology records eye movement, gaze duration, blink rate and pupil size, which represent a person’s cognitive and emotional state. This paper analyses the different areas where eye-tracking technology can be applicable in maritime navigation, including research on visual attention, gaze patterns, situational awareness, human-machine interfaces, mental workload and training improvement. The data obtained from various studies on eye tracking technology enable the development of preventive measures and corrections of human errors, especially during the seafarer’s training phase and in equipment layout and design. Eye tracking technology represents a valuable tool to enhance safety and efficiency in maritime navigation, as shown in this paper, which provides a foundation for future research and practical implementation.

Maritime education and training (MET) are under constant pressure from the maritime industry, characterized by extremely rapid development. Due to the high risk in the transport and handling of crude oil, seafarers employed on oil tankers are required to have skills and competencies well above the minimum education standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW). Therefore, tanker companies should provide additional training for their employees to ensure the fundamental goals of zero-accident rates and reduce human error to a minimum. This especially applies to seafarers at the management level, who must have the competence and knowledge to operate oil tankers at the highest professional level. This paper examines the current challenges in education and the required competencies of seafarers at management levels concerning the rapid growth and development of the tanker industry. In addition, some shortcomings regarding the current form of education and training have been considered, and recommendations for the future upgrade of the education and training system for seafarers at the management level are provided.

The paper presents and processes data on inspections of the individual Memoranda (regions) and compares the overall number of ship detention cases. Also, the paper identifies the differences in various regions in the same period as well as their causes and consequences. Container traffic plays a key role in the international trade. Therefore, the research is based on a comparison of the inspection statistics (in general) and the ship detentions share with the total number of inspections and detentions of the container vessels for each region and the same period. The data have been collected from the annual reports of the individual Memoranda (regions), covering a five-year period, from 2015 to 2019. The results of the research have pointed to partially successful attempts to harmonize and standardize the inspection procedures, as well as to the problem of the non-existent uniformed inspection system.

The latest container vessel grounding in the Suez Canal, which occurred on 23 March 2021 (the Ever Given), raised many questions regarding the safety of navigation. The sudden concern about safety is due to fears that traffic flow through the Suez Canal could be blocked for longer periods of time. Besides external forces imposed by wind, in this case bank effect had a significant influence on the ship’s grounding. Bank effect occurs due to restricted water flow caused by narrow waterways. Many fairway design standards consider sloped banks such as those of the Suez Canal as unsubstantial in bank-effect forces. This paper analyses the impact of sloped banks on container ship trajectory and proposes minimal distances that may decrease bank-effect forces in order to reduce the risk of vessel grounding and increase the safety of navigation. However, this type of accident has happened before and may occur again due to a small sailing distance from the bank in cases where vessel speed is increased.