Economic Activity and Societal Risk Acceptance

Decisions based on risk analysis require some form of risk acceptance criteria. Presently the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has initiated an activity on developing a risk-based approach to safety and environmental protection regulations. Explicit risk estimates are new to the IMO. At present, a number of FSA Trial Applications are presented, giving increased general knowledge of the risk level in the industry. The debate about risk acceptance has therefore just started. The objective of this paper is to outline an approach by which societal risk acceptance criteria may be established. The idea is to make it possible to discriminate between ship types representing different risks and importance to society. The societal risk acceptance criteria are calibrated against occupational fatality rates, and transportation fatality rate for scheduled air traffic worldwide. Examples are given for some different ship types. It should be noted that many other criteria would be needed in the decision process, like e.g. individual risks, criteria based on cost effectiveness, and criteria for environmental consequences. Normally a decision would have to be based on acceptance by all these criteria. Only one specific method to arrive at societal risk criteria is dealt with herein.