“A Critical Assessment of Human Element Regarding Maritime Safety: Issues of Planning, Policy and Practice” Dr. F. Xavier Martinez de Oses TRANSMAR Research group Department of Nautical science an engineering Technical University of Catalonia - UPC Barcelona, Spain Nikolaos P. Ventikos National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) Athens, Greece Abstract In this paper, we will present the findings, derived from a structured questionnaire, that cover various aspects of the relation between human factor and maritime safety. In general, human element holds a very important share compared to the ensemble of marine-accident causes. This fact renders human behaviour and performance as potential leading components in relative safety surveys. Moreover, it must be noted that marine industry is surely between the less documented sectors, as far as human element is concerned. Nevertheless, IMO is constantly aiming at an adequate incorporation of human factor in numerous of its actions and regulations. Hence, numerous key enhancements of human behaviour and performance could be regarded as possible future standards and specifications, for certain safety-driven procedures of maritime transport. Then, we describe and analyse an original human-related questionnaire, which focuses on depicting the current practice of human factor, mainly through the implementation of the International Safety Management Code. The specific questionnaire, which comprises of an adequate sample of interviews and surveys, is presented in detail, in order to set off all fields of included data and its corresponding potential for informative and exploitative usage. Thus, the selected results are clearly human-oriented and they assay to portray a number of human aspects (crew training, acceptance etc), relatively to safe management and naval accidents. Finally, we close this paper with some interesting and revealing conclusions, derived from the aforementioned process. This way, we plan to show the importance of human factor in the evolving outline of the contemporary marine industry. Keywords : human factor, marine safety, International Safety Management, accidents. Introduction The issue of marine safety should be regarded as the key priority concerning the planning and practice of maritime transport procedures, in a worldwide scale. Since the vast majority of world trade is being conducted through sea-borne ways, maritime safety should be viewed as a factor that needs extreme caution, detailed planning, self-commitment and obligatory enforcement. The term marine safety has a multi-fold content, with a serious impact on numerous aspects of the maritime transport chain; more specifically, it involves the aversion of human losses and injuries, the