UK: New Tool “HiLo” Launched To Prevent Accident In Shipping

Dr Grahaeme Henderson, President of the UK Chamber, last night launched HiLo, a predictive modelling tool for accident prevention in shipping.

“Our shipping industry has a fatal accident rate 20 times that of the average British worker and five times that of construction. Simply put, that is unacceptable. And it needs action – now,” Dr Henderson said in his speech.

“And that means all of us, as leaders in the shipping industry, working together – working together as one global shipping team,” he said.

The new initiative aims to prevent ‘high-impact’ events like explosions, collisions and groundings by recording the frequent low-level incidents that are pre-cursors to major incidents – hence the name HiLo.

Data from these smaller, seemingly nonthreatening incidents can be interrogated using HiLo. The analysis can then be used to target the specific areas in which safety should be improved onboard vessels, which will help upgrade the overall safety performance of the individual shipping companies that subscribe to the scheme.

Development of the HiLo system has been undertaken jointly by Shell, Maersk and Lloyd’s Register, with future funding from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

HiLo’s independent secretariat will be based at the UK Chamber in London by the end of 2018.

Shipping companies Gaslog; Maran Gas, Stena as Northern Marine, Stolt, Teekay, Torm, Tsakos Columbia Ship Management and V Ships are HiLo’s founding members, and have been contributing incident data to the system during its preliminary stages.

“Working together, we can and we will, improve the shipping industry the world over – for every ship, every company, every crew member,” said Dr Henderson.

“We have a vision – a vision of a zero-incident industry. A vision where never again will a child lose their father or mother on one of our ships. We have the power to make the changes,” he continued.

Reference: ukchamberofshipping.com