Accounting for human failure in autonomous ship operations

Recently, numerous organizations have made progress in developing autonomous ships, motivated by, among other factors, the potential for increased safety. This applies especially to accidents involving human error, as autonomous ships would remove operator role from all or most operations. The reality is that although the human role is reduced, autonomous ships would still rely on operators for supervision, remote control, and involvement in case of a glitch or an unexpected situation. Thus, autonomous ships do not fully eliminate the possibility of human error. In this study, we assess the potential for human error in autonomous ship operations. We analyze an unmanned autonomous ship operation, and through a generic analysis of the interaction between operators working a Shore Control Centre (SCC) and system, we identify possible Human Failure Events (HFE). This provide a starting point for performing human reliability analysis of autonomous ships operation.