Assessment and Proposals for Improved Transportation Safety on Congo River

Abstract

Today, maritime transport accounts for the largest part of the world's freight traffic, and significant progress has been made in the maritime industry. Implementation of safety management gives shipping industries to be successful in their daily operations. The International Management Code for Safety Operation are used and the main objectives of the ISM Code, are to safeguard maritime operations at sea, prevent personal injury and loss of life, avoid damage to the environment, in particular the marine environment. The Tanker Management and Self-Assessment (TMSA) are established to increase safety of maritime operations as guideline to measure and assess tanker operators’ management system developed by Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF). Maritime transportation in Congo until now is a serious problem due to the lack adequate safety rules and regulations which leads to many accidents every year. Due to the scarcity of regular company boats, citizens in the Congo DRC resort to motorized canoes or other “whaling boats”. Accidents are frequent on the Congo in maritime sector, due to the dilapidated nature of the boats, their overload with passengers and freight and the absence of markings. In this master thesis, the main objective of research is to collect date and analyse safety transportation system in maritime transportation in Congolese as of today. The transport system of goods (cargo), people and transport system between offshore and onshore in this region will be researched.

Summarize the lessons learned from this research and design a future safety system for the maritime transportation in the Congo DRC and how they can implement a Safety system in their maritime transportation to reduce or eliminate the ever-present deaths and accidents.