Distributed Situation Awareness in pilotage operations: implications and challenges

Pilotage is considered as the most critical leg of navigation and a complex operation in maritime domain. In this paper, we argue that Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA) is an important construct in pilotage as the information required to carry out operations is distributed between agents and artefacts. We identify the central themes from the theory of DSA which are useful in describing modern day complex socio-technical systems. Further, based on the central themes, we propose guidelines for evaluating bridge teams involved in pilotage operations.