Challenges, solution proposals and research directions in safety and risk assessment of autonomous shipping

Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) are becoming reality in the shipping industry. Besides numerous anticipated advantages this type of ships has there are new potential hazards as well that have to be addressed. This needs to be done at the design stage of transportation system that will encompass such vehicles, to make sure that the new system’s safety can be guaranteed at the acceptable level. To this end numerous methods can be utilized pertaining to the field of safety and risk assessment. Those methods however are of different scope and may have different application areas. Therefore in this paper we discuss selected methods suitable for safety assessment and quantification of transportation systems including goal-based safety case approach, system theoretic process analysis and risk assessment. Challenges and opportunities of those approaches are highlighted and the recommendations are given regarding the application areas of the methods.