Development of a worldwide ferry safety database utilizing relational database approach

What is it about?

Ferry transportation provides a crucial mode of transportation for many in the developing world, especially in archipelagic nations like Indonesia and in river delta nations like Bangladesh. However, this dependence on ferry services contradicts with a high rate of accidents and fatalities. Efforts to reduce the ferry accidents are impaired by lack of complete and reliable data for accident analysis. Supported by the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association, this manuscript analyses the shortcomings of existing maritime accident databases from the perspective of ferry safety research, and develops a dedicated ferry safety database using the relational database approach – Ferry-SAFEDB.

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Why is it important?

With this database, Ferry-SAFEDB, information related to ferry safety can be organized in a logical way that not only strengthens the efficiency and reliability of data maintenance, but also augments the amount of information to form a comprehensive information management platform and conduct data-driven analyses. Also, a sample database application is empirically conducted with the major ferry accidents over the past 17 years. The preliminary study shows that the proposed Ferry-SAFEDB is feasible and has the real-world implications for ferry safety efforts.