Naridas – Evaluation of a Risk Assessment System for the Ship’s Bridge

The Navigational Risk Detection and Assessment System (NARIDAS) is a novel approach to a task-oriented integration and assessment of nautical data on the ship’s bridge. Based on about 100 physical and technical input parameters of the navigation process, NARIDAS performs an online calculation of the current situation’s navigational risk on eight dimensions. With a bar chart of the eight risk values, NARIDAS provides a comprehensive overview of the current risks to support situation awareness of the bridge team. The focus of this paper is on the evaluation of NARIDAS during the development process. Evaluation is conducted with practitioners and nautical experts, and addresses three levels: (1) risk model validity, (2) design of graphical user interface, (3) system effectiveness. Two evaluation studies were conducted. Study I was carried out with a static functional prototype, addressing levels (1) and (2). For study II, a fully-functioning prototype was implemented in a ship-handling simulator to investigate level (3). Positive results were obtained on all three levels, indicating that NARIDAS provides a valid model for the situational risks of ship navigation, and a promising tool for enhancing situational risk awareness of the bridge team.