Dr. Ron Pelot, PhD, PEng

Maximum Expected Time to Rescue: requirements for Northern Shipping (METR project)

Department of Industrial Engineering
Dalhousie University

Date: October 5, 2022
Time: 1:00-2:00 PM
Online MS Team: Click here to join the meeting

Abstract:
Ships that travel in the Arctic must comply with the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code), which imposes additional requirements on top of all of the other international and national regulations. One element is the ‘Maximum Time to be Rescued’ for ships’ Polar Code Certificates, which dictates that vessels undertaking polar voyages have adequate capacity to survive until help arrives. Currently the only guidance to completing the Polar Code Ship Certificate is that the MTR must not be less than 5 days. In practice all ships going into the Canadian Arctic have 5 days on the certificate. A previous study completed by the National Research Council of Canada showed that time to be rescued varies with location. This information was used to build a generic model for Exposure Times in Polar Regions that does not explore place of safety, maximum expected times for rescue, nor Northern community response capacity.

The METR (Maximum Expected Time to Rescue) study is developing models using polar voyage information, such as the ship type, time of year, location, routes, and number of persons on board to determine when an MTR different than 5 days is warranted in various regions in the Canadian Arctic. Our computer models will consider traffic patterns, historical ice cover, weather conditions, quality of bathymetric data, closest “place of safety”, and locations of nearby ships. A mixed methods approach is used to combine numerical models with expert opinion.

Speaker Biography:
Ronald Pelot, Ph.D., P.Eng., has been a professor in Industrial Engineering at Dalhousie University since 1994. Over the past three decades, he and his team have developed new software tools and analysis methods applied to maritime traffic safety (accidents at sea), environmental impacts of marine shipping traffic, and coastal zone safety and security. Research methods encompass spatial risk analysis, vessel traffic modelling, data processing and pattern analysis, location models for response resource allocation, safety analyses, logistics planning, and cumulative shipping impacts studies. He has taught courses in risk and decision analysis, operations research, human factors engineering, and engineering economics. Dr. Pelot has published over 200 journal articles, conference proceedings and technical reports.

Industrial Engineering seminar series contact person:
Dr. Floris Goerlandt
email: floris.goerlandt@dal.ca

General Enquiry:
Ms. Tara Parker
Tel: 902.494.3281
email: tara.parker@dal.ca