A conceptual modelling for predicting human error during voyage planning emergency management in maritime: Heart and improved Z-number

Voyage planning is a safety–critical task in maritime navigation, where human error plays a significant contributing factor to maritime emergencies. This paper proposes a conceptual modelling for predicting human error probability (HEP) in ship emergency voyage planning by integrating the Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART) with an improved Z-number approach. The framework systematically decomposes voyage planning into task types, analyse them to relevant Generic Task Types (GTTs), and quantifies associated Error Producing Conditions (EPCs) through HEART. In order to deal with the inherent uncertainty and unreliability in expert judgments, the improved Z-number is adopted, enabling simultaneous representation of both the degree of belief and the reliability of that belief. The findings show that sub-task 2.6 (Configure ECDIS safety parameters with a 3.797E-01 HEP and subtask 3.6 (Observe maritime traffic and manoeuvre according to COLREGs) with a 2.558E-01 HEP value are the vital tasks contributing to human error during ship emergency voyage planning management. The outcomes of the research will provide the utmost contributions for maritime safety practitioners, ship officers, regulators, and training organisations, supporting proactive risk mitigation strategies in voyage planning.