Visual scanning strategies of maritime pilots during navigation

Abstract: In maritime pilotage, the pilot operates the ship in cooperation with the bridge crew to ensure the ship’s safe passage through the route. In remote pilotage, the pilot does not enter the ship but works from a remote pilotage center (Grundmann et al., 2023). The latter has been studied in recent years as it offers many advantages compared to traditional pilotage, including being less dangerous for the pilots themselves and less costly. From a human factors perspective, remote pilotage presents significant challenges, as there is a risk that a remote pilot receives less information, potentially leading to reduced situational awareness. These challenges are related to changes in information sources, requiring the pilot to adapt from direct observation to relying on instruments and crew testimony. Such issues are critical, as problems with situational awareness are a common cause of maritime accidents in pilotage (Grech et al., 2002).To understand the potential problems in remote pilotage, the phases of ordinary pilotage should be well understood. Pilotage consists of several tasks such as route planning, master-pilot exchange, providing advice, ship navigation, communication and ship handling. In this study, we focus on navigation, where both the bridge crew and the pilot must maintain multiple types of situational awareness, including task, spatial, system, and social awareness. These can be further categorized into three levels: 1. Perception of the environment, 2. Comprehension of the situation, and 3. Projection of future status (Sharma et al., 2019). The types and levels of situational awareness are reflected in information requirements of pilot, which are indicated by the visual scanning of the environment.ObjectivesIn the current study, we aimed to understand the visual scanning strategies of maritime pilots operating in a simulator environment. Specifically, we sought to comprehend temporal changes in scanning strategies during different phases of navigation, enabling us to understand the information needs in various phases of navigation. This provides novel insights, as changes in visual scanning strategies have not been previously studied in maritime piloting.MethodsIn our study, each pilot and master navigated through a fairway in a simulator. Both participants were instructed to operate as they would in normal pilotage. The pilot wore a Pupil Labs Neon eye tracker, conversations were recorded with microphones, and actions were captured with two GoPro cameras. Additionally, actions were recorded in the simulator log files.DiscussionEye-tracking data revealed scan patterns that persisted throughout the route, as well as others that were specific to certain route phases, such as turning. The outside view was observed most frequently and was associated not only with understanding the ship’s direction and rate of turn but also with the pilot advising the master on current and upcoming navigational issues. A second significant finding was that the pilot confirmed commands by observing the master’s actions.Our study shows clearly why pilot-master cooperation is a sociotechnical system, where interaction with technology is intertwined with social interaction. An interesting challenge was how these social components could be maintained in remote pilotage, particularly in narrow archipelago routes where timely actions are critical.ReferencesGrech et al (2002). Human error in maritime operations: Analyses of accident reports using the leximancer tool. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 46(19), 1718–1721.Grundmann et al (2023). Use Case Remote Pilotage – Technology Overview. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2618(1), 012007.Haslbeck & Zhang (2017). I Spy with My Little Eye: Analysis of Airline Pilots’ Gaze Patterns in a Manual Instrument Flight Scenario. Applied Ergonomics 63: 62–71. Peysakhovich et al (2022). Classification of Flight Phases Based on Pilots’ Visual Scanning Strategies. In 2022 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, 1–7. Seattle WA USA: ACM, 2022.Sharma et al (2019). Situation Awareness Information Requirements for Maritime Navigation: A Goal Directed Task Analysis. Safety Science 120, 745–52.

Keywords: maritime pilotage, remote pilotage, situational awareness, eye movements, visual scan patterns, navigation

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006553

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