Major incidents in ports down to 0.12 per 100,000 vessel movements in the past ten years

Building on this, MPA made three partnerships to further enhance maritime safety.

The number of major incidents in Singapore ports had seen 0.12 major incidents per 100,000 vessel movements in 2018, down from 0.8 in 2009, according to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

Dr. Lam Pin Min said during the fourth International Safety@Sea Conference that this is attributed to the use of technology and digitalisation to further enhance maritime safety.

Building on this development, MPA will further push digitalisation in two areas. First, is the Digital OCEANS strategy to encourage open or common exchange and network standardisation.

This aims to allow digital platforms of port authorities for the maritime single windows of shipping lines and logistics service providers to link up. Business entities, government agencies, and vessels will be able to connect between different digital platforms and achieve end-to-end connectivity.

Meanwhile, the second area of focus is to support the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) in operationalising the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) concept of e-navigation for vessels. The move looks to make marine navigation safer and digitalise key maritime services.

These initiatives are said to improve efficiency, reduce transaction costs and enhance maritime safety.

In addition, three memoranda of understanding (MOUs) were also signed. MPA inked a deal with A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing to conduct research in human behavioural analytics, advanced computational models and intelligent maritime traffic simulation in navigational safety.

The second MOU is with Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau to jointly promote and enhance maritime safety investigations via the development of training platforms and programmes.

Lastly, MPA made a deal with Group Nautical Pte Limited to create, design and develop virtual reality maritime training courses using immersive technologies.