Fatigue Management Program for Canadian Marine Pilots

1.1 General Introduction
The pilot’s main responsibility is to safely guide ships through specifically designated waters
without incident. The demand for marine pilots is determined by shipping traffic, which is highly
irregular, and pilots can be called at any time of day or night. Marine pilots experience high
levels of fatigue caused by long, irregular work schedules and limited opportunities for sleep.
Moreover, some individuals may not know and/or adopt adequate strategies to alleviate the
adverse effects of fatigue. The consequences of this fatigue to marine operations are
deteriorated performance and reduced safety. Fatigue effects in shipping operations have
been well documented by many scientists (Buck et al., 1998; Colquhoun, 1996; Colquhoun, 1985;
Condon et al., 1988; Davis et al., 1997 and 1998; Parker & Hubinger, 1998; Parker et al., 1997;
Rutenfranz et al., 1988; and Shipley & Cook, 1980) and safety officials (TSB reports M93L0001,
M93C0003, and M97W0197).
The Canadian accidents led the Transportation Safety Board to recommend to Canadian
pilotage authorities to adopt pilotage assignments policies and practices to reduce the adverse
effects of fatigue on performance. They also recommended the development of a fatigue
awareness training program by Transport Canada to teach pilots how to reduce the impact of
fatigue on their job performance. Moreover, two other recommendations of the Ministerial
Review of Outstanding Pilotage Issues concerned issues that are linked to fatigue. The first stated
that the Laurentian Pilotage Authority should “determine whether and when requirements for
double pilotage are valid” and the second concerned the inadequate pool of qualified pilot
candidates.
Consequently, the development of a comprehensive fatigue management program (FMP) for
marine pilots contributes to meeting these recommendations and identifies work conditions and
staffing problems that exacerbate problems related to fatigue.
1.2 Purpose and Objectives
The project objective was to improve marine safety by developing for the pilotage industry an
FMP that will contribute to a reduction in fatigue-related accidents and incidents, and provide
guidelines and evaluation procedures for programs aimed at other marine personnel.
The purpose of this initiative was to:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Identify fatigue problems experienced by marine pilots.
Develop a fatigue management program that will include fatigue awareness
training, strategies to reduce fatigue at work, guidelines to improve pilotage
assignments, and monitoring and evaluation procedures.
1