Charactaristics of Communication Observed through BRM Training of Seafares in Japanese Coastal Shipping

Abstract

 There is no report on the whole of communication among seafares in a navigation bridge although it is one of the most important factor in BRM. In this paper, charactaristics of communication are investigated based on thousands of discussion records by trainees and instructors after simulation exercises of BRM training.

 First, the authors show the communication errors in a navigation bridge can be categorized into 24 elements, in which 7 elements relate to the quality of information to be communicated and remaining 17 ones relate to the failure of transmission. The data from the discussion records are analyzed by Principal Component Analysis ; it is shown that the degree of seafare’s interest in each communication category is corresponding to the first principal component and difficulty on carring out communication is corresponding to the second one.

 It is clarified that there is little correlation between the defference in types of simulation scenario and analysis results and the trainees give their mind to the matter on the failure of transmission rather than the quality of information except “ambiguity” and “obscurity”.