Acting on industry feedback, RightShip will transition to a new Safety Score that evaluates historic performance and vessel management standards and puts the operator at the heart of improving standards across the industry.

RightShip, the world’s largest maritime risk management and environmental assessment organisation, has today announced the launch of its new Safety Score, heralding a new era for safety and due diligence in the shipping industry.

The launch of the new Safety Score comes as RightShip responds to industry feedback that called for more transparent methods of assessing vessels. RightShip has spent the last two years working in collaboration with stakeholders from across the shipping industry. The new Safety Score provides a metric that is explainable, transparent and only includes factors which are in the control of the operator, to help support improved safety across the entire maritime sector.

The Safety Score will be housed on the new RightShip Platform, which will replace the current platform Qi as well as the predictive Risk Rating once the Safety Score goes live. The announcement is being made before its formal launch in September 2020, to provide the maritime industry with a period of time to prepare for the switch over.

RightShip’s previous Risk Rating predicted the likelihood of a vessel having an incident across the next 12 months. The new Safety Score focuses on providing the operational performance at the vessel, DOC holder, flag and class level.

The Safety Score uses a refined methodology that analyses the severity of any previous incidents, the frequency of incidents and any previously identified detentions and deficiencies for a given vessel. The new score also takes account of the proactivity of owners, operators and managers in managing safety and risk, by looking at their responsiveness to incidents, deficiencies or detentions. This in turn helps to provide a clear, identifiable path towards improving safety standards and processes.

It creates a level playing field for all vessels on the water, regardless of type, size, age or builder, allowing industry participants to benchmark their safety procedures against the sector’s best performers. It is intended to help users gain an initial perspective on the operational performance of a potential charter, and to encourage shipowners to invest in improved processes and technologies that make the entire supply chain safer.

Commenting on the launch of the Safety Score, Martin Crawford-Brunt, CEO at RightShip, said: “Since 2001, RightShip’s mission has been to help improve safety across our industry. An important element of this mission has been to ensure that we provide the market with the tools that ultimately help to underpin that pursuit of continuous improvement. Our new Safety Score recognises considerable industry feedback calling for greater transparency and control of ratings, and is the result of widespread collaboration with owners, operators, managers, charterers and others across this global industry.

“We have created a balanced score which can be used by all members of the supply chain. For our due diligence customers, it provides a clearer insight to the operational performance of a vessel and DOC holder. The Safety Score is an indicator designed to be used as one of many factors in the due diligence process. Coupled with maritime expertise, it allows for the assessment of a nominated vessel and the provision of a vetting recommendation for a charterer.

“For the shipowning community, the new Safety Score takes into account management performance and approach, giving owners a true understanding into how they can improve safety across multiple parameters. It also encourages shipowners to invest in system improvement, processes and technologies that make the entire supply chain safer.

“We believe that this will support improving wider safety standards across the industry and drive a new conversation within shipping about how we manage risk whilst safeguarding our operations, which is particularly important in our current environment.”

Over the coming months, RightShip is providing a range of resources to support the launch of the new Safety Score and facilitate the transition. These include educational webinars and a dedicated resource page at comingsoon.rightship.com. Existing RightShip members will also be invited to familiarise themselves with the new user interface and functionality during a dedicated Beta testing window, commencing 30th June 2020.