Alternative assessment of passenger ship safety – Early results from the EU project FLARE

Mitigating flooding risk through passive and active measures is a key step in further increasing the safety of shipping, reducing loss of life and damage to the environment. This paper presents key findings from the EU Horizons 2020 project FLARE (FLooding Accident REsponse) that introduces a novel risk-based methodology beyond the state-of-the-art for “live” flooding risk assessment and control, with potential application to new and existing ships. The project develops a flooding accident model - based on statistics and first-principles tools - that aims to assess the frequencies of flooding events whilst accounting for pertinent environmental conditions and design parameters including ship crashworthiness. Cost-effective risk control options are under evaluation and possible recommendations and/or amendments to the regulatory framework will be submitted to the IMO.