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In recent years, transport activities have radically increased due to globalisation, growth in wealth and freedom of movement. The shipping industry has responded to increased needs by providing flexible operations using new types of ships, equipped with novel technologies, materials and propulsion systems. Furthermore, services have been extended to new geographical areas including locations in and around populated cities. Naturally such services, in addition to the benefits, create various types of problems including noise pollution. This issue has been addressed at the European as well as the IMO (International Maritime Organization) level with the introduction of new/revised standards and limitations on noise. These statutory standards are also applicable to ships for the well-being of crew, commuters, as well as residents living around ship passageways and harbours. This paper focuses on the welfare and performance of seagoing crew working in various locations in the ships. Noise measurements carried out onboard six chemical tankers are presented and examined within the context of the IMO regulation A468 (XII) as well as the EU Directive 2003/10/EC concerning noise. After discussing the basic aspects of noise exposure, the paper investigates the differences between the EU and IMO standards and their effect on crew

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/56137/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. automation. This has triggered a trend to decrease the number of crew members on board ships. Nevertheless, 3 these automated systems still require human intervention for interpreting the information or when tasks 4 require decision-making. Therefore, as compared to the past, even though the physical workload of the crew 5 members on today's vessels decreased, the cognitive load is much higher than it used to be. As a result, 6 maintaining the performance of the crew has become more important than before to achieve safe shipping 7 operations. Investigations of the shipping accidents from US, UK, Canada, and Australia showed that human 8 error is the major contributor of shipping accidents where 80 to 85% of all accidents were primarily caused by 9 or associated with human error (Baker and Seah, 2004). As a result of this increased understanding on the 10 importance of the human element, more research was focused on human factors on board ships. AbstractWith modern trends of decrease in crew numbers on board ships together with increased operational demands and paperwork, crew fatigue and comfort have become more critical and are being given more importance. It is well known that environmental factors affect crew comfort and performance. The two outstanding factors which exist in the shipboard environment are vessel motions and noise. As such, the findings and lessons learnt from other industrial sectors are considered to be less relevant for ships. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct focused research to understand the effects of these factors, so that the lessons learnt can be integrated into the ship design process so as to mitigate their adverse effects during vessel operations. Due to obvious performance issues, ship motions and motion sickness research has attracted far more interest than human response to noise. This paper reports the findings of a recent research study undertaken as part of an EU FP7 research project, namely SILENV, which investigated the current levels of crew noise exposure through field studies. Furthermore, developed models on human response to noise on board ships and SILENV green label noise standards are also introduced in comparison with the current normative framework.

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