Digitalization has revolutionized the maritime industry. Technological advancements in navigation and positioning system and tools, like Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) have increased the information flow and processing need. The visual and mental complexity to handle these advanced systems can be overwhelming . What would be the impact of these advancements in navigation systems on the Situational Awareness of navigator while encountering complex navigation scenarios.
Training/ with simulator data provides an opportunity for the crew to familiarize themselves with the user interfaces of these complex navigation systems and prepare them to handle various complex navigation scenarios, respond and assess their responses for better preparedness and improved situational awareness (SA). However, it is also important to be able to understand how good the navigatror's situational awareness actually is.
We propose a SA Tool that establishes optimal conditions for evaluating situational awareness, with insights informing the development of intuitive systems and user-interfaces. In the domain of maritime safety, an inverse correlation exists between situational awareness and scenario and system complexity, emphasizing the need for effective training and assessments for improving situational awareness . The SAGAT method (Situational Awareness Global Assessment Technique, Endsley,2000), which is well established in other domains, is employed to calculate an individual’s SA score. The tool developed can evaluate participant’s situational awareness in different navigational scenarios on Ship Handling Simulators using the latest navigation tools. It employs a dynamic questionnaire with contextual maps to assess the SA of the participants and integrates a rule-based system, to evaluate the performance of the participants and calculate a situational awareness score, providing a dedicated interface for real-time evaluation and result storage. This tool offers numerous possibilities in the field of assessing the SA of navigators.