Statistical Analysis of Accidents and Review of Safety Level of Passenger Ships

Abstract

This paper deals with a statistical analysis of maritime accidents pertaining to passenger ships in worldwide operation and, ultimately, with the assessment of the current safety level of the particular ship type, assuming that the safety level may be defined as a societally acceptable level of risk. The basic risk contributors, namely the frequency of main accidents’ occurrence and related consequences, are herein quantified and assessed. The presented analysis, covering the last two decades (2000–2021), shows that there has been a considerable reduction in the frequency of serious accidents’ occurrence in the last decade, whereas associated consequences do not exhibit the same trend since the frequency of ship total losses and of fatalities has increased. However, fatality rates are, to a great extent, affected by accidents of ships not compliant with safety regulations. This study also confirmed that grounding and contact accidents dominate the statistics of passenger ships of all subtypes, whereas collision accidents only account for about 30% of the events potentially leading to flooding. This calls for an urgent reconsideration of present SOLAS damage stability regulations, in which the bottom and side collision events need to be reconsidered with priority as the prime contributors to the flooding risk of passenger ships.