CINS – Widespread attention is drawn to major maritime incidents
Widespread attention is inevitably drawn to major maritime incidents and natural catastrophes, such as the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. However, liner operators have individually been concerned about lesser problems that regularly disrupt operations and endanger lives, property and the environment. Most of these are successfully resolved by a ship’s crew, often with the assistance of shore-based experts; many have the potential to lead to major incidents, such as Hanjin Pennsylvania or Hyundai Fortune.
Information relating to lesser incidents has so far been anecdotal and mostly kept within individual lines’ marine operations departments. Now a number of the lines have put their heads together to increase awareness of such incidents and therefore improve safety surrounding container movements and the integrity of the supply chain.
A committee was formed last year, chaired by MSC and comprising CMA CGM, Evergreen, Hapag-Lloyd, and Maersk, as a step towards this greater awareness.
As a result the Cargo Incident Notification System (CINS) and associated database, known as CINSnet, through which key data can be captured, has been created. The COA (Container Owners’ Association) has agreed to host the database. The TT Club, as a key insurer for the transport industry, and the International Group of P&I Clubs, have been involved in the project and is an advisory member of the CINS committee.
The intention of CINS is to allow the liner operators to capture structured key causal information relating to cargo and container incidents. At the outset it was the intention to collate data concerning dangerous goods only, but the committee rapidly recognised that this scope was too narrow in the context of the real-life experience. Thus, CINS will encompass any matter that raises safety or environmental concerns that actually or potentially result in incidents. This is anticipated to reveal how widespread unsafe practices are in the container industry. A dedicated website has been established to hold the information and will be formally launched next month.
Apart from the fact that structured data relating to cargo safety has been elusive and generally only held by the individual lines, it is also the case that the conclusions of investigations by flag states and port state control are often not published until long after the incident. The CINS initiative will enable participating lines to receive an early warning in respect of potentially serious incidents, empowering them to work pro-actively towards averting similar incidents within their own organisations.
The information capture explicitly excludes any shipper data, in order to preclude any anti-trust concerns; the CINS Organisation has committed to comply with the US Sherman Act; Article 101 and 102 of EU treaty and any other similar competition law. No rate discussions, capacity management or other commercial issues are allowed to be raised within the CINS organisation.
Analysis of the captured data by the lines and their insurers will facilitate a greater awareness of areas of concern and trends, which will improve safety in the supply chain. It is envisaged that where trends are identified through the work of CINS, the lines will have the necessary factual information to support any efforts to achieve regulatory or other intervention, rather than the anecdotal evidence on which they have formerly been forced to rely.
For example, difficulties encountered with cargoes that display dangerous characteristics, but which may not yet be recognised as such in the IMDG Code, will be highlighted for consideration during the biennial review of the code. Furthermore, apart from potentially leading to and supporting relevant changes in legislation or other safe practice recommendations, the availability of such data will inevitably improve the quality of advice and training, in matters of packing and securing of cargo within containers.
This element of the initiative is clearly aligned with other international shipping developments. Through CINSnet, the actions by regulators to require verification of weight declaration (IMO), twinned with improved guidance on the proper stowing and securing of cargo within containers (ILO/IMO/UN ECE), will be provided with substantive statistical input.
When IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee met in May this year, it agreed to the development of measures to prevent loss of containers, including the verification of proper weights used by shipboard computers. Arguably, this is already international law, since SOLAS (the Safety of Life at Sea convention) requires the shipper to declare weight and content accurately. However, clarifying the information required to verify weight will increase the enforceability of the shippers’ obligation.
The TT Club believes that SOLAS can be modified to require that the gross weight of containers is verified to within 1.0% tolerance of the gross weight declared on the shipping documents. However, TT also urges that measurements should be verified at the earliest possible point in transport, not just at the ports, and a weight receipt from an authorised body should accompany the transport documents.
There is a separate initiative underway in the ILO to update the IMO/ILO/UN ECE Guidelines for Packing of Cargo Transport Units (CTUs) which were last reviewed in 1997. This further enhances safety and will assist in the process of ensuring that cargo is properly loaded and secured within containers.
An ILO report, entitled Safety in the Supply Chain in relation to Packing of Containers, was an urgent wake-up call to a largely cost-focused and sometimes complacent supply chain industry; it should be required reading for anybody connected with packing containers. The report highlights that the prevalent container custom of inaccurate cargo weights, coupled with a bad stow, is an accident waiting to happen – on every road, rail, barge, feeder, terminal and ship, 24/7, 365 days a year.
At the heart of the CINS initiative is a quest for quality – both in terms of pure service delivery, ensuring the cargo arrives in sound condition on time, and also improving the way in which all parties in the supply chain carry out their obligations to safe and secure cargo transit.
Source: IFW
