Stopping shipping accidents before they happen

We’re making shipping safer through our grant to HiLo, which is transforming risk management in shipping. HiLo is a joint initiative bringing key players in the maritime industry together to save lives and ships from being lost at sea. It uses predictive risk modelling to identify potentially high-impact events and stop disasters in their tracks.

On seas around the world around 3,000 tankers and bulk carriers submit their data into  HiLo’s system, using the ship’s safety data to stop catastrophic shipping incidents before they happen. Since Lloyd’s Register Foundation became a funding partner for this innovative non-profit initiative in 2016, HiLo has helped ship managers reduce the risk of safety and environmental incidents by an estimated 72%.

It’s won numerous awards, including ‘Best Safety Service of the Year’ at the 2019 Safety at Sea Awards and ‘Best Safety Innovation Award’ in 2019 from the Institution of Engineering and Technology – recognising innovative services which have the potential to improve the safety of seafarers.

HiLo was founded in 2016 by Shell Shipping and Maritime, Maersk Tankers A/S and Lloyd’s Register Consulting as an independent joint industry initiative. The project was set up to echo hugely successful predictive risk modelling projects from rail and aviation in the maritime industry. It uses data already being collected on board – on near misses, incidents, inspections, audits etc - but not used to its full potential. With HiLo, crews have a vested interest in providing the highest quality data, as it has a direct impact on their own safety.

HiLo has created a sophisticated statistical model which translates all safety-related data from its subscribers into a comprehensive risk profile for each company and the HiLo fleet as a whole. Armed with this analysis, companies using HiLo analysis can stop catastrophes in their tracks. All reports are anonymised, meaning each customer gets the opportunity to learn from others' experiences without putting their information at risk.

Manit Chander, CEO of HiLo, explains why predictive modelling is now saving lives: “Theshipping industry has realised that learning lessons from incidents is not enough to turn round the stubbornly high number of ships – and lives – that are lost at sea. Using predictive risk modelling, HiLo is transforming risk management in the maritime industry.”

HiLo works with the data already being gathered on ships. It uses this to give shipping advance warning of potentially serious incidents before they happen. This breaks new ground in safety, essential to an industry frustrated by stubbornly high figures for casualties (2,500 on tankers in the last ten years) and ships lost at sea (119 on average every year). A plateau in the statistics has emerged after decades of safety improvements following tighter regulations, better training and the willingness to learn from incidents.

“The shipping industry is aware that major shipping incidents are not tolerable,” says Manit. “New techniques are required to drive improvements in safety performance that are not just based on historical lessons from incidents.”

HiLo receives data from on 2,200 tankers, 800 bulk carriers and from Jan 2021 from nearly 600 container ships and 500 Platform supply vessels. The data is protected and anonymised to create insights for all HiLo subscribers. HiLo uses data already being gathered on around 20,000 safety incidents every month. It filters out irrelevant ‘noise’ and selects around two in every ten of these for analysis by its powerful predictive modelling tool. The information shared empowers shipping companies to make the best decisions and stop catastrophes in their tracks.

As well as preventing serious accidents on the current generation of ships, HiLo’s output has the potential to improve the design of future ships. It’s also being used to improve training and operational efficiency on board ship.

HiLo’s widespread adoption is also standardising the way in which the maritime industry categorises incidents. This will support the introduction of new programmes and procedures for managing activities that have an impact on safety. A reduction in the number of maritime incidents will also lead to improvements in the efficiency and reliability of the supply chain. Ultimately, it will help improve the reputation and standing of the maritime industry in the eyes of the wider public.

For more information, please visit HiLo Maritime Risk Mangement's website.