Virtual Reality for Maritime Emergencies Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Reality for Maritime Emergencies

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Open and distance learning; Agriculture, forestry and fisheries

Project Summary

CONTEXT

Emergencies in ships are stressful situations where crews must follow specific guidelines and procedures to assure their safety. According several studies, most of fatal accidents in fishing sector were due to lack of knowledge on devices and / or emergency procedures, or non-completion of periodic training exercises and simulations.
To assure a correct reaction by the crew in emergency situations, trainings and simulations are needed, where crewmen are exposed to a series of scenarios to demonstrate they know the procedures, and how to execute them.
VET entities in the marine sector don’t have nowadays any kind of tool that can help crewmen to learn the procedures of how to react in these situations, apart from guidelines and handbooks, and trainings onboard are difficult to plan since vessels are operating most of their time, either at sea or charging procedures.
Virtual Reality (VR) environments are becoming a more effective learning tool, where pupils can experience these emergency situations in immersive environments, moving around a 3D universe and interacting with people and objects.

OBJECTIVES

A consortium of partners proposes to develop the project Virtual Reality for Maritime Emergencies: VR-ME, whose objectives are:

– To develop an 3D immersive environment based on a trawler fishing boat, accessible through a Virtual Reality kit.
– To develop a set of emergency situations based on the formal training requirements for crew and the most common and dangerous cases
– Base on these elements, a training course will be created to tackle these emergency situations, in which the pupil will be tested to complete them in the 3D environment. This will serve to learn how to react and what procedures must be followed

The course will be distributed in Open Access format, accessible to be used by downloading this software and using a 3D kit. The main target beneficiaries of this course will be:

– Professionals of the fishing sector
– VET providers and academies in the fishing sector and work safety
– Public & private Entities working in labour safety
– Professional Associations of fishermen

PARTICIPANTS:
The consortium is formed by a set of entities combining VET providers and representatives of the fishing sector:

– Institut Maritime de Prévention- Applicant (France): The main training entity for labour safety in the french maritime sector
– SGS TECNOS (Spain) is the world leader in certification and regulation. A renowned training company specially focused on work safety
– ARVI (Spain) The fishing Vessel Owners´ Co-operative of the Port of Vigo,
– SQ LEARN (Greece) expert developers of Virtual Reality tools for VET
– Pelagic Freezer-trawler Association (Netherlands) represents the interests of several trawler companies
– EUROPECHE (Belgium): The main representative of the fishing industry in Europe

ACTIVITIES AND METHODOLOGY

The main output for this project will be t a training programe for Maritime Emergencies in vessel, whose central axis will be the VR simulator of the procedures to be followed in the most common emergencies onboard a fishing vessel. It will be developed in the following steps:
IO1- Maritime emergencies and procedures. Risk analysis and adaptability to simulator: The project will start with a study of the maritime emergencies in fishing vessels. Partner will list which emergencies should be selected according to several criteria, will develop the procedures to be followed and finally will write these procedures in a language to be converted to a VR simulator.

IO2- Maritime emergencies simulator development: Based on the emergencies an procedures detected in the previous step, partners will develop the VR environment where the user moves inside a ship and has to face several emergency scenarios.

IO3- Testing, translation and production of complementary materials: Finally the consortium will complement and improve the simulator with several tests with the final beneficiaries to get their feedback, producing the handbook to manage the software properly, complementing the simulator with the training program to be offered offer in a bundled package, and translatingall contents to partners’ languages.

EXPECTED RESULTS IMPACT AND LONGER TERM BENEFITS

With this project, the consortium aims to:

– Prepare fishermen to better face emergency situations onboard
– Decrease of accidents and fatalities rate
– Got towards a harmonization of emergency onboard procedures
– Increase computer literacy of fishing professionals and the digitalization in the sector

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 336400 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Maritime de Prévention & Country: FR

Project Partners

• PELAGIC FREEZER TRAWLER ASSOCIATION
• SGS TECNOS SA
• SQLEARN AE
• COOPERATIVA DE ARMADORES DE PESCA DEL PUERTO DE VIGO S.C.G.
• ASSOCIATION DES ORGANISATIONS NATIONALES D’ENTREPRISES DE PECHE DE L’UE