A Novel Process Model for Marine Accident Analysis by using Generic Fuzzy-AHP Algorithm Bekir Sahin 1,2 and Yunus Emre Senol 1 1 (Surmene Faculty of Marine Science, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey) 2 (Maritime Department, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey) (E-mail: bekirs66@gmail.com) Marine accident analysis is a sophisticated and complex official interpretation that requires a professional and fair judgment. For accidents such as a collision, contact and other incidents in the maritime field, the judgment mechanism of the courts depends on the decision process of the field experts. Field experts define the “Fraction Defectives” (FDs) of the vessels for the intended case based on the existing evidence and navigational specifications. However, evaluation of human judgment can be limited and problematic in analysing many aspects of a case. In this paper, a pairwise comparison method is used to simplify and clarify the judgment process. We aim to assess marine accidents in a stepwise approach that is inaccurately carried out in a holistic perspective by the field experts. A real accident that occurred in the past is simulated in front of the field experts. After conducting an expert consultation, FDs are re-calculated to compare both the regular judgment and the results in our suggested Generic Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (GF-AHP) approach. KEYWORDS 1. Algorithm. 2. Radar. 3. Navigation. Submitted: 5 March 2014. Accepted: 18 July 2014. First published online: 15 August 2014. 1. INTRODUCTION. Accidents generally result in a serious damage, loss, death, injury or pollution, and marine accidents such as a collision, contact, grounding, fire or explosion involve large economic, political and ecological consequences. Therefore many governments investigate marine accidents by branches of their Departments of Transportation (for details see the Appendix). Courts also provide experienced field experts who are drawn from pilots, captains, naval architects or engineers. These experts mostly interpret the rules and regulations in a subjective assessment process. Ensuring justice becomes harder due to the many rules and regulations and outcomes may vary significantly. In the conventional method, proper values of “Fraction Defectives” (FDs) are assigned as to the roles of parties (i.e. vessels) involved in the related case. In the conventional application of marine accident analysis, FDs are determined in a THE JOURNAL OF NAVIGATION (2015), 68, 162–183. © The Royal Institute of Navigation 2014 doi:10.1017/S0373463314000514 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0373463314000514 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 207.241.231.80, on 25 Jul 2018 at 08:31:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at