Finnish Maritime personnel’s conceptions on safety management and safety culture
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the Finnish maritime personnel’s
conceptions ofsafety management and its relationship with the concept of safety culture. This thesis isa contribution to the geographical studies of organisation (see, for example, Del Casinoet al. 2000; Audia, 2015; Müller, 2015) and the geographical studies of ships (see, forexample, Hasty & Peters, 2012; Anim-Addo et al. 2014).
1.1
Background
Over twenty years has passed since the Ro-Ro ship Estonia capsized and sank 28thSeptember 1994. Yet, the accident seems to resurface in the media near the anniversarydays (Iltalehti 22.9.2014; Kaleva 27.9.2004; Savon Sanomat 28.9.2008; Tekniikka jatalous 28.9.2009)
The accident caused a national trauma, particularly in the vessel’s flag
state Estonia and in Finland and Sweden. Most of the passengers were from thesecountries and the most of the crew members were Estonian (JAIC, 1997).The accident was investigated thoroughly by the Joint Accident InvestigationCommission
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(JAIC, 1997). The accident investigation and related scientific studiesrevealed several problems within the safety culture of the maritime industry (Hänninen,2007; Kristiansen, 2005).The accident of Estonia was not the first fatal accident drawing attention to inadequatemaritime safety culture. The accident investigations of the Herald of Free Enterprise andthe Scandinavian Star revealed fatal problems within the maritime safety culture as well(Department of Transport, 1987; Robinson, 1999; Kristiansen, 2005). In theinvestigations it was concluded that the shipping companies operated in a competitivemanner and aimed to maximise their profits at the expense of safety. Safety culturedeficiencies were found amongst the shipping company management as well as ship
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A “Joint Accident Investigation Commission” between Estonia, Finland and Sweden for the investigationof the capsizing of the passenger vessel MV ESTONIA on 28 September 1994 was set up on 29September 1994. The Commission consists of three members from each state and was chaired by one ofthe members from Estonia, the flag state of MV ESTONIA.
Jouni Lappalainen
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crews. The accident investigations revealed that the management were not committed tosafety and the crew members were not participative in relation to safety (Department ofTransport, 1987; Robinson, 1999; Kristiansen, 2005; Gill & Wahner, 2012). Accordingto Hänninen (2007), the shipping companies and the shipping industry were not capableof executing corrective measures due to the fact that the risk handling measures and therisk management systems were underdeveloped within the maritime industry(Hänninen, 2007; see also Gill & Wahner, 2012; Hystad & Bye, 2013)As a reaction to these serious maritime accidents and other problems within safetyculture, the IMO enacted the International Management Code for the Safe Operation ofShips and for Pollution Prevention (International Safety Management (ISM) Code)(Schröder-Hinrichs et al. 2013; Hystad & Bye, 2013; Xue et al. 2015). The ISM Coderequires that the shipping company should implement a safety management system.There was strong belief that implementing a safety management system would result ina safety culture:
”Indeed,
the proper implementation of the ISM Code
should result in a safety culture.”(ISF, 2010)
The purpose of the ISM Code is to provide an international standard for the safemanagement and operation of ships and for pollution prevention. The ISM Coderequire
s that “every Company should develop, implement and maintain a Safety
Management System (SMS)
”
(IMO, 1993). The ISM Code is considered to be the firstmaritime regulatory instrument that determines specified responsibilities to a companyand its management with regard to safety (Anderson, 2003; see also Schröder-Hinrichset al.2015).The ships that were visited during this study sailed mostly in the Baltic Sea area, withthe exception of one, which sailed in the Red Sea during the visit. The geographicalcharacteristics of the Baltic Sea pose several challenges to maritime safety. Forexample, according to Finnish maritime pilots, the navigational conditions are difficultin the Finnish waters, because the routes are narrow, and there are a lot of turns anddangerous rocks (Lappalainen et al. 2014b). At the northern part of the Baltic Sea, the
Finnish Maritime personnel’s conceptions on safety management and safety culture
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navigational difficulties increase during the winter, because the sea can be ice-coveredfor several months (Valdez Banda et al. 2015). Because of the dense maritime traffic inthe Baltic Sea, the area is recognized as one of the busiest vessel-operated areas in theworld (Brunila & Storgård, 2012). Furthermore, the traffic is expected to increase in thefuture, especially due to the increase in maritime transport to and from the new Russianports in Primorsk and Ust-Luga (Kujala et al. 2009; Brunila & Storgård, 2012).However, the shipping statistics of the Baltic Sea from the years 2009, 2010 and 2013have indicated some decrease in shipping activities (HELCOM, 2014).It is expected that the growth of maritime oil transportation, in particular, will increasethe risk of maritime accidents in the Baltic Sea (see for example Kujala et al. 2009;Zhang et al. 2015). Based on the traffic data gathered by the Automatic IdentificationSystem (AIS) and incident reports, the spatial distribution of probabilistic accidents hasbeen evaluated, and potentially dangerous places, or so called hot spots, have beenidentified in various parts of the Baltic Sea (Marcjan & Cucma, 2010; Montewka et al.2010; Goerlandt & Kujala, 2011; Laine, 2015; Przywarty et al. 2015; Zhang et al.2015). Special attention has been paid to the risk of an oil accident by analysing thespatial distribution of traffic flows, accidents and incidents and oil spreads models(Lehikoinen et al. 2015). The dominating accident types are grounding and collision(Kujala et al. 2009; HELCOM, 2014). According to HELCOM
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statistics (HELCOM,2014) collisions (collisions and contacts) were the main type of accidents in 2013,accounting for 38% of the accidents in total, while groundings accounted for 29% of theaccidents (see Figure1
