Vessel Traffic Safety in Puget Sound

The existing status of marine transportation safety is examined by analyzing large vessel casualty data for Puget Sound and adjacent waters for 1974-79. Accident and near miss data were extracted from U.S. Coast Guard data files and stored using the System 2000 data base management system. Emphasis is placed on the risk of high consequence marine accidents by examining the causes and results of large vessel accidents and by investigating incidents with the potential for being high consequence accidents. The importance of certain specific types of human errors is documented. Results of this analysis will be integrated with other segments of a risk analysis methodology in order to produce recommended elements of a marine transportation management scheme.