Visualization of Differences in Treatment of Safety Inspections across Port State Control Regimes: A Case for Increased Harmonization Efforts

Abstract

The topic of harmonizing port state control (PSC) inspections has been on the agenda of the flag state sub‐committee meeting at the International Maritime Organization in recent years. This article is based on a unique combined dataset of 183 819 PSC inspections and uses correspondence analysis to visualize differences in treatment of vessels across several PSC regimes, representing more than 50 individual port states in order to provide better insight into the areas of possible harmonization. The results show that treatment of vessels across the regimes varies, indicating room for harmonization in all inspection areas. We recommend accelerating the harmonization process by putting more emphasis on the harmonization of inspection procedures, combined training of PSC officers and the use of combined datasets across regimes, in particular in the concept of the development of the Global Integrated Ship Information System of the International Maritime Organization.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the following port state control regimes for providing their inspection data: Paris MoU, Caribbean MoU, Viña del Mar Agreement on PSC, United States Coast Guard, Indian MoU and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and Lloyd’s Register Fairplay for providing information on ownership of a vessel.

Notes

1. Disclaimer (from Sabine Knapp): ‘The views expressed in this article represent those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the International Maritime Organization (IMO)’.