Maritime operations play a critical role in global trade but face persistent safety challenges due to human error, environmental factors, and operational complexities. This review explores the transformative potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) in enhancing maritime safety through improved communication, decision-making, and compliance. Specific applications include multilingual communication for international crews, automated reporting, interactive training, and real-time risk assessment. While LLMs offer innovative solutions, challenges such as data privacy, integration, and ethical considerations must be addressed. This review concludes with actionable recommendations and insights for leveraging LLMs to build safer and more resilient maritime systems.

Accidents in port areas are generally relatively minor given the lower prevailing speeds, but dangerous cargo terminals located in the vicinity of populated areas present some risk of accidents with catastrophic consequences. The maritime risk assessment frameworks have been developed in many ports, but few include studies incorporating collisions between sailing and moored ships. This paper presents the risk assessment framework for such accidents. Moreover, it presents the important role of harbour regulations in the navigation risk management process within the port area. Today’s port regulations are created mostly based on the good practice of pilots and other experts, whereas quantitative methods are used less frequently. The intention of the presented case study was to demonstrate how quantitative risk assessment may be used in port policy development, which is why the method created is general and may be used in any terminal with dangerous cargo. The multi-stage method consists of several steps that make up a complex methodology, consisting of expert study, real-time simulation—a simulation of a collision in port is presented—and analytical-empirical calculations for consequence assessment. The case studies of the developed method are presented based on two real accidents, one in the Police port along the Świnoujście-Szczecin waterway, and the second in the Port of Koper in Slovenia. The results of this study present the parameters of the ship’s safe approach to the terminal area, such as velocity and approaching angle. These parameters are used to calculate the impact forces in the case of a collision between a moored and passing ship and its consequences on ship integrity as well as on mooring arrangement. Based on probability and consequences, the risk is evaluated and discussed in the sense of port safety. The presented method could be used as the framework for risk assessment of collisions in a port area, particularly when dealing with dangerous cargo or sensitive vessels such as cruise ships.

The paper presents an analysis of ship traffic using the port of Świnoujście and the problems associated with modelling vessel traffic flows. Navigation patterns were studied using the Automatic Identification System (AIS); an analysis of vessel traffic was performed with statistical methods using historical data; and the paper presents probabilistic models of the spatial distribution of vessel traffic and its parameters. The factors that influence the spatial distribution were considered to be the types of vessels, dimensions, and distances to hazards. The results show a correlation between the standard deviation of the traffic flow, the vessel sizes, and the distance to the hazard. These can be used in practice to determine the safety of navigation and the design of non-existing waterways and to create a general model of vessel traffic flow. The creation of the practical applications is intended to improve navigation efficiency, safety, and risk analysis in any particular area.

No advance in navigation has yet to prevent the occurrence of accidents (incidents are always implied when we discuss accidents) at sea. At the same time, advances in accident models are possible, and may provide the basis for investigations and analyses to help prevent future adverse events and improve the safety of marine transport systems. In such complex socio-technical systems models that treat accidents as the result of a chain or sequence of events are used most commonly. Such models are well suited to damage caused by failure of physical components in relatively simple systems. Although these often include methods for modeling human error, they do not cover broader aspects related to the management of the organization using the means of transport itself (shipowners) nor errors that may occur in the design phase. In particular, they do not cover changes in the systems over time. The paper presents accident investigation approaches and uses a modified causal model to analyze an incident that occurred in January 2019 on the city ferry in Świnoujście. The results of the analysis were used to provide guidelines for increasing safety at the crossing and to evaluate the accident analysis model used. Additionally, incidentally, through the study of this case we uncovered a problem in communication among stakeholders that unnecessarily complicates the models for the models for the improvement of safety.

The paper describes a two-stage method for optimizing the location of marine oil spill combat forces and assessing the costs related to this action at the sea. An optimization problem relates to positioning the oil pollution combat ships in ports in such a way that they are able combat the anticipated number of oil spills in certain positions in the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea area in the shortest possible time. The problem was classified as NP-hard; therefore, in the first stage, an evolutionary algorithm was applied. The main output of the model based on the evolutionary algorithm is the time of arrival of combat ships from the port to the oil spill area, as well as the costs of such operation; this is defined as the aim function. The first stage of the model does not simulate combat pollution action; therefore, the results obtained were treated as approximate. In the second stage, the several best allocations of oil spill response resources obtained in the first stage were used as input to a detailed simulation model of combat action. For each chosen allocation, a number of oil combat action simulations were carried out. The model can be used to create and verify oil pollution contingency plans, and finally increase the sustainability of sea and coastal areas.