Safety under control

According to the science of state management, the supervision and control are an essential part and function of the state management ensuring stable and safe operation of national transport system as well as improvement of its competitiveness.

In March 2004, the Decree No 314 of the RF President clearly determined criteria of control-and-supervision activities.
The Federal Service for Transport Supervision was established in July 2004 for execution of control-and-supervision functions in the sphere of transport. Within the Service framework the Board of State Maritime and River Supervision was set up. For some time state control covered only inland water transport of the Russian Federation. In January 2007, the Ministry of Transport formed local authorities for state maritime supervision. The competence of RosTransNadzor local bodies covers the entire territory of the Russian Federation.  

I’d like to refresh your memory as regards a postulate of supervisory activities: ‘the criteria of state responsibility for transport safety is the efficiency of state and its executive authorities’ efforts aimed at reduction of accident rates and protection of population against traffic accidents, natural, technogenic or terroristic risks’. I think it is comprehensive and correct.
Therefore, it is important to evaluate the efficiency and to understand if the instruments are sufficient and adequate.

Eternal issue is the minimizing of the main cause of emergency situations – human factor accounting steadily for over 70% of emergencies. It would seem that safety priorities are correct:
1.Vessel and outfit;
2.Manpower – crew and other personnel;
3.Legislation, regulations and standards;
4.Environment and infrastructure.
Nevertheless, human behavior is still unpredictable due to lack of either discipline or competence.

Direct and rigid management is necessary here though legal organization of ship owning companies provides no opportunities for that. I think we are to issue regulations to response the above situations.

The Kerch Strait disaster of 2007 will be a subject to return to for a long time on. I think everybody knows clearly what happened. Frankly speaking, the disaster revealed a number of nonconformities, which were unseen before. Besides, the events instigated prompt mobilization aimed at disaster cause removal. However, mobilization is only the first step to be followed by implementation as there should be a result at the end.

Therefore, the Ministry of Transport worked out a schedule of measures aimed at improvement of navigation safety in the Kerch Strait and Azov-and-Black Sea basin. Implementation of the measures will make it possible to avoid similar disasters in the future. The RF  Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, to put it mildly, ‘speeded up’ implementation of the measures having given hard unconventional orders. However, subordinate bodies do not show required understanding or prompt response. Many of them lack objective self-evaluation resulting in hard and slow implementation of the adopted decisions.

There is another problem, the failure to solve which is likely to cause drastic consequences. It is a safety situation at hydraulic engineering facilities (HEF). There are 723 HEF at inland waterways of the Russian Federation

According to the analysis of HEF safety declaration, as of January 1, 2008, only 20.9% of HEF have normal level of safety, 60.8% – limited serviceability status with low safety level, 14.2% - pre-emergency status with unsatisfactory safety level and 4.1% - emergency status with unsafe level.

Thus, 10 of 335 facilities have the emergency status and 36 structures - pre-emergency status. The majority of them are located in the regions of active navigation. One would attribute safety decrease to long operation of the existing HEF (from 40 to 100 and over years) and insufficient financing of their maintenance in 1990-ies. However, the share of facilities with unsatisfactory safety level and unsafe level increases though financing of routine repair and overhaul continues to grow. Therefore the decrease should be actually attributed to non-fulfillment of primary works and measures specified by declarations and aimed at improvement of safety level.

Control-and-supervision activities of RosTransNadzor also comprise participation in state committees for HEF commissioning following the repair works, as well as in pre-declaration reviews of norms and regulations for safe operation of HEF. In 2007, RosTransNadzor and its local bodies revealed over 1,500 violations related to safe operation and issued recommendations on their elimination.

I wonder what causes such a ‘skidding’.  Perhaps, ‘business interests in transport’ still prevail over safety interests hence the situation when Russian River Register ‘shows understanding of shipping companies’ position’ and provides vessels built in 1950-ies of the previous century with seaworthiness certificates. Harbor masters may also ‘show understanding’ and ‘feel operational need’ when turning a blind eye at an obvious violation of navigation zone limits by a vessel, the crew of which has no documents satisfying the requirements of STCW.

Satisfaction of ‘Operational needs’ and ‘needs of population’ at the expense of safety is embedded so deep in the minds that even the governors of the RF constituent entities ask the Federal Service for Transport Supervision to approve extension of service life for vessels (tankers), which are to be taken out of operation till January 1, 2008 in compliance with the International Conventions. No measures ensuring safe navigation of such vessels were mentioned though. I don’t think the existing means are likely to help us obtain the desired result as long as such things are imbedded in the minds. Rigid management is applicable here as well.

It must be confessed that today RosTransNadzor has no unified system for assessment of its structural and local subdivisions per certain period. We have to do a lot to work out and put into practice ratios and criteria for assessment of supervision efficiency, as well as methods for control of our subdivisions. I would just say that the planned activities are executed in full with lots of inspections and revealed violations. What is the most important here is the high number of emergency situations against the increased number of implemented corrections, thus there is something wrong somewhere. It is important to be objective in self-assessment and to make prompt corrections into the instruments applied.

Current development and improvement of regulations related to safe navigation and environment proceeds from radical changes in maritime industry. The development and introduction of targeted standards, further strengthening of requirements to protection of marine environment and other international initiatives confirm qualitative changes of the approaches to the issues of safe navigation.

Promptness of adoption and introduction of international standards is unprecedented indeed. It creates a principally new situation in maritime industry, where prompt introduction of these norms by all the participants exercises a significant influence on ecological component of their activities as non-fulfillment of the standards causes considerable limits or ban for operation of such vessels.
Transportation of hazardous cargo always implies increased risk due to specificity (potential hazard) of cargo itself and, consequently, considerable environmental damage in case of emergency situation.
I won’t trouble you with statistics but I’ll tell you only one fact: 3,850,500 tonnes of oil entered the World Ocean for the last 40 years though there are no guarantees that all oil spills have been registered.

It is well known that legislation becomes efficient provided that the community considers it to be reasonable rather than just acknowledges it as obligatory by authority of law. One of the most prestigious and reputable international institutes elaborating the policy of safe navigation is the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which was one of the first to support the USA initiative on creation of a global counterterrorism system on the sea. It took short time to work out an International Ship and Port Security Code (ISPS Code), which has become an integral part of SOLAS Convention and an official document for all the states. The document came into force onJune 01, 2004.

According to the Code, all the ports and vessels are to have approved security plans ensuring cooperation between port facilities and vessels. Implementation of ISPS Code by vessels is subject to international control as vessels may me used by terrorists to enter ports. It is easy to imagine that a vessel carrying thousands of passengers, tens or even hundreds of crude or oil products may become a weapon, the consequences of which for human beings and environment are unpredictable.
It is obvious that substandard ships are the most vulnerable objects in terms of a possibility to become a target of terrorists. Therefore, vulnerability may be determined by a technical state of vessels and their equipment as well as by a serviceability of safety management systems of vessels, ports and shipping companies’ coastal units. That is why elimination of substandard shipping leaving no alternatives for navigation safety maintenance is a special issue in view of global terrorism threat.

As of today, only one fifth of all vessels in the world comply with ISPS Code. As for ports, the picture is disappointing as well – only 16%. Many ship owners do not understand or recognize the significance of this international document. In Russia, all the vessels participating in international transportation are certified in compliance with ISPS Code. All the port facilities servicing conventional vessels are subject to the same certification.

In compliance with the provisions of the Federal Law of the RF No 116-FZ dated 12.07.1997 on Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities, any project for construction or upgrading of a terminal should obligatory include an ‘industrial safety declaration’. Such a declaration specifies possible causes of certain emergencies; provides a quantitative evaluation of threat probability and adequacy of engineering and administrative measures aimed at prevention, detection and mitigation of threat consequences; determines impact and damage to personnel and nearby population.

We currently try to arrange all the growing requirements to business as an orderly list of plain and clear rules. It would be reasonable to be armed with your proposals. including 335 facilities bearing the status of critically significant facilities according to the Decree of the RF Government No 411-rs dated 23.03.2006. According to risk classification they are considered as technology hazard facilities with I-category facilities accounting for 65% and II-category facilities – for 35%.