Relationship between human factors and a safe performance of vessel traffic service operators: A systematic qualitative-based review in maritime safety

The growth of the world merchant fleet in recent decades has caused an increase in congestion and complexity in maritime traffic, especially in coastal areas, straits and nearby channels. This fact, which acts negatively upon maritime safety, however, has meant a decrease in the number of accidents, rather, they have even been reduced by half in the last decade. This anomaly is explained by the implementation of Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) in these conflict areas and for this reason, in this review we will study, through the analysis of different relevant studies on the subject, the relationship between the human element and maritime safety, focusing on the figure of the vessel traffic service operator (VTSO) as a link between safety and efficiency, exploring their staffing, training, functions and factors affecting them within the maritime system. This review was conducted following the reporting guidelines for systematic reviews based on the PRISMA 2020 model (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-Analyses). Also, a bibliometric analysis of the extensive academic literature pertaining to maritime safety in relation to the human factor was carried out, focusing especially on VTS and the operators that act in them, with a special focus on the period from 2000 to 2020. Based on 371 articles, the bibliometric analyses yield to us the information on the publication patterns related to the year of publication and the keywords by identifying the main thematic groups, finally extracting 11 representative articles that have been investigated in detail focusing on the influence of the human factor in maritime safety in the VTS environment.