Analyzing the factors affecting the safe maritime navigation for training apprentice officers

One of the primary factors that affect the safe maritime navigation is the insufficient experience and skill of an apprentice officer, which may be improved using simulation-based training by ensuring operational efficiency. This study aims to determine appropriate factors for achieving effective and intensive simulation-based training of apprentice officers and present the guidelines for such a training scheme. Initially, a marine traffic risk model, which interprets and accurately measures the risk of collision with other vessels, is analyzed to derive the most influential factors in safe navigation. Subsequently, simulation experiments are conducted by applying machine learning to verify the required safe navigation factors for effectively training the apprentice officers. As a result of the above analysis, it was confirmed that the factor affecting safe maritime navigation was the distance from other vessels. Finally, the differences between these distances in the simulations are analyzed for both the apprentice officers and the experienced officers, and the guidelines corresponding to both these cases are presented. This study has the limitation because of the difference between the ship maneuver simulation and the actual ship navigation. This can be resolved based on the results of this study, in combination with the actual navigation data.