Human Elements in Shipping Casualties Project

The Human Elements in Shipping Casualties Project was a project funded by the Department of Trade, and later the Department of Transport, and undertaken by a project team from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. The project sought to highlight the interactions between human elements in shipping casualties and the environmental and technical factors involved. The project looked at several different categories of casualty, including contacts, collisions, groundings, fires and explosions, machinery damage, and heavy weather damage.

The project took place in two distinct phases, with Phase I focusing primarily on quantitative research into the factors behind shipping casualties, and Phase II taking a more qualitative approach to research in order to assess the views and experiences of those involved in, and at risk of, shipping casualties. The primary sources of data for anaylsis, particularly for Phase I of the project, were the Marine Directorate's casualty files, and the project, in both stages, aimed to illuminate deficiencies in the recording process of casualties and suggest new methods of working towards a more standardised and comprehensive process of record keeping with a view to identifying how this could help with preventitive measures.