A human factors systems approach to examining oil spills in tankbarge operations: analysis and reappraisal of management policies

An important problem in the US maritime industry is the large number of oil spills that occur as a result of oil transfer operations involving tankbarges. Recently, the US Coast Guard initiated a new programme entitled Prevention Through People that represents a concerted effort towards preventing human errors leading to casualities and oil spills. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to explore tankbarge oil transfer operations from the standpoint of regulatory, management, and operational perspectives in order to determine the likelihood that this new initiative will indeed result in a better understanding of the causal basis for human error in these operations and, more generally, in the maritime industry. The results of this novel study are discussed and summarized in terms of four broad classes of recommendations.