More than hours of work: fatigue management during high-intensity maritime operations

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This study examines the impacts of peak summer demand on operator workload and fatigue in a maritime environment. Methods: Participants (n = 12) were senior shipboard personnel who were working during the summer “double sailing” period for a roll-on roll-off ferry service. Wrist actigraphy was used to determine sleep opportunity and sleep duration, as well as prior sleep, total wake time, performance and alertness at the beginning and end of work periods. Results: Contrary to expectations, sleep was significantly greater, and both subjective estimates of fatigue and objective neurobehavioral performance were not impacted negatively by periods of increased work intensity. Conclusions: This study highlights a number of features of a fatigue-risk management system that appear to have been instrumental in ensuring adequate sleep and performance was maintained throughout periods of increased operational intensity. As a simple colloquial description of the fatigue-risk management system at play in this operation, it was fine to “work hard” if you were able to “sleep hard” as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Sleep
• fatigue
• safety

Acknowledgements

The research team acknowledges the organisation operating the roll-on roll-off ferry service involved in this study, who effectively utilised a data-driven approach to their safety-assurance processes within their fatigue-risk management system, and the individual crew-members who agreed to participate in the data collection. Note on the role of the funding source: the organisation operating the roll-on roll-off ferry service involved in this study funded the collection of the data but was not directly involved in the analysis of data or preparation of the manuscript. They gave permission for the publication of this article.

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Anonymous Australian Maritime Operator [N/A].