Bringing a Full Mission Bridge Simulator on Line The Human Factor

James Buckley and Paul Leyda

Abstract:	There is a growing interest, desire, and perhaps even a preoccupation bv international maritime standards organizations, 1J.S. ma&me regulators, vessel owners and managers, maritime operating professionals, and maritime educators to exploit sophisticated computer simulation technolog?l. The goal is to improve the practical navigation and watohkeeping skills of the deck watchkeeping team in order to improve the safety record of ships as well as to protect the environmental from damage caused by ship casualties. This paper will document the processes involved in bringing a full mission bridge simulator, currently used to train undergraduate maritime students, on line. Included are the objectives for the undergraduate, cadet level firlI mission simulation, chalkznges involving the human factor in simulation that had to be overcome along the way, the successes enjoyLxI, and the failures recognized, and acknowledged, during the start-up operation. It was clear, even early in the processes, that sophisticated full mission bridge simulation can be a very usebd tool to teach specific higher level skills that can not be taught in a traditional classroom setting. These higher level skills include: bridge team management, bridge resource management, information management and information prioritization, complex situational awareness, and multi- dimensional cognitive thinking. In addition, it was realized that although full mission bridge simulation is capable of instantly recreating situations that otherwise might take months or even years to encounter through actual sea going experience it must only be used to enrich and enhance actually sea-going experience, not as a complete substitute for actually being at sea.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1996 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 1996 Loews Santa Monica Hotel Santa Monica, CA
Pages:	369 - 376
Cite this article:	Buckley, James, Leyda, Paul, "Bringing a Full Mission Bridge Simulator on Line The Human Factor," Proceedings of the 1996 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Santa Monica, CA, January 1996, pp. 369-376.
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