The Bahamas Maritime Authority’s (BMA) has developed a new online reporting portal for use by managers and owners, replacing the nine forms currently used to report various marine incidents with a digital alternative.
All relevant information can be captured through a single input, reducing the duplication of effort required to complete multiple forms, with the collected data also subsequently available for analysis for trends within The Bahamas fleet. The BMA notes that its online portal meets all the requirements of the Merchant Shipping Act and other national and international requirements.
“Currently it can be quite a laborious exercise to report an incident, perhaps requiring the completion of three or four different forms,” said Nick Dowden, Assistant Director and Marine Investigator in The BMA’s Investigations Department.
“By digitalising the process, the system itself will handle any duplications of information needed and will also lead the user through the stages of reporting – asking only for relevant details and flagging any supporting material that is needed.”
“In terms of data collection and analysis, it will make it much easier for us to identify trends across our fleet so that clients can benefit from each other’s experiences. This will be particularly helpful to managers and owners who have only one or two vessels operating and so wouldn’t have the benefit of seeing the wider trends in the industry.”
The new portal will initially run concurrently with the paper system and has been specifically designed to work even when ship connectivity is lost. Any report that is submitted whilst offline will be stored in the client’s computer cache and will synchronise with The BMA server once the internet connection is restored.
