Fatal Risk at the Port-Ship Interface

by Richard Steele, Chief Executive Officer – ICHCA International

Why the most persistent dangers in cargo handling remain concentrated in the industry’s most familiar working environments, and why a coordinated response across ports, ships and regulators is essential.

For all the technological progress seen across ports and terminals, one challenge continues to resist easy resolution: the persistent risk of fatal accidents in cargo handling. Automation, digital planning tools and increasingly sophisticated operating systems have transformed terminal operations, yet the core hazards remain familiar.

Heavy loads still need to be moved and, for most ports and terminals, that still means risk to people. Vehicles continue to share space with pedestrians. Workers may still enter enclosed spaces, work at height and operate at the water’s edge.

Evidence collated by ICHCA suggests that, despite years of learning and industry commitment to safety, the sector continues to face a pattern of fatal incidents that is both recognisable and, if addressed collectively, preventable.

What stands out is not the randomness of these incidents, but their concentration. A relatively small group of hazards accounts for the majority of fatal outcomes involving port workers. Crush-by-cargo incidents, vehicle run-overs involving pedestrians, confined-space accidents, falls from height and falls into water continue to dominate.

These are not unusual or isolated risks. They sit at the centre of everyday port activity, embedded in loading, discharge, maintenance, inspection and transport operations. The industry’s most severe risks are not hidden in exceptional circumstances; they are woven into routine work.

That matters because it should shape how the industry approaches prevention. If the most serious incidents arise from familiar tasks in familiar environments, then the challenge is not simply awareness. Ports are not short of awareness. The challenge is consistency: applying known controls rigorously, day after day, across working environments shaped by time pressure, complexity and constant change.

The operational centre of gravity remains clear. Cargo handling continues to be the activity most closely associated with fatal accidents. This is hardly surprising. Cargo transfer brings together personnel, moving equipment, restricted visibility, suspended loads and shifting conditions, often in confined areas. Whether cargo is handled by crane, vehicle or mechanical system, the margin for error is narrow.

When operations take place under the pressure of vessel turnaround or landside throughput, the conditions for unsafe shortcuts can emerge quickly, despite efforts to strengthen safety culture. Not necessarily through poor leadership, but through the realities of human behaviour in high-pressure environments.

The prominence of maintenance and equipment-related incidents in ICHCA’s data adds another important dimension. Fatal accidents are not confined to peak operational periods, such as loading or unloading. Risk persists during the essential supporting work that keeps terminals functioning: repairing machinery, inspecting systems, clearing faults and managing access to equipment. It is often during these less visible tasks that safeguards cannot be allowed to weaken, be bypassed or become taken for granted.

READ: Safety Leadership is About Taking Risks

Another significant finding is the near-even split between fatal incidents involving port workers onshore and those occurring ship-side. This challenges the tendency to treat ports and vessels as separate operational domains.

While terminals, quays and vessels may operate under different procedures and employers and reporting structures, the workforce experiences them as one continuous environment.

Personnel moving cargo or equipment across the port–ship interface do not move in and out of risk according to organisational boundaries. The hazards sit across those boundaries, and the response must do the same.

The evidence also highlights a strong concentration of fatalities in bulk cargo operations. This reflects the long-recognised realities of bulk handling: open holds, unstable cargo, restricted visibility, large-scale moving equipment and the physical complexity of accessing cargo spaces.

While containers and RoRo operations carry their own hazards, bulk cargo remains one of the most unforgiving operational environments in the port sector. This should not encourage fatalism, but rather sharpen attention on where the burden of risk is greatest.

Location also matters. Research shows the quay and the ship’s hold remain among the most significant sites of severe risk. Neither finding is surprising, but both are important. The quay is often viewed as a transitory zone, a place of movement rather than exposure, yet it is precisely where cranes, trucks, trailers, pedestrians and the water’s edge converge.

The ship’s hold, meanwhile, remains one of the most demanding spaces in cargo operations, combining confined conditions, difficult access, variable atmospheres and constantly shifting cargo states. These are not generic work areas; they are highly specific operational environments requiring tailored controls, disciplined procedures and sustained attention.

Seen in this light, the sector’s next step is not to search for new categories of risk, but to maintain pressure on the ones it already understands. Stronger controls to keep workers out of crush zones, improved vehicle-pedestrian separation, tighter confined-space procedures, practical work-at-height safeguards and enhanced waterside protections would directly address the dominant fatal risks identified here. The case for these measures is not abstract. It is grounded in recurring patterns observed over the past 25 years.

That is why the regulatory question deserves renewed attention. Effective regulation should do far more than punish failure after the fact. It should establish a consistent baseline across ports, terminals and shipping operations, particularly in areas where inconsistency weakens prevention.

Traffic management, contractor oversight, confined-space entry, permit-to-work systems, reporting quality and incident investigation all benefit from greater alignment. In a global industry, uneven standards create uneven protection. When practices differ too widely between operators, jurisdictions or cargo sectors, lessons become fragmented and preventable failures persist.

Regulation alone, however, will not solve the problem. Meaningful improvement depends on coordinated action across the wider maritime logistics chain. Terminal operators, shipowners, cargo interests, labour groups, equipment manufacturers, insurers and industry associations all intersect in the environments where these fatalities occur.

Historically, serious incidents have often emerged in the gaps between responsibilities rather than within one clearly defined area of control. That is precisely why a more collaborative model of prevention is required.

There is, however, reason for optimism. The patterns are visible. The principal hazards are known. High-risk tasks and locations are identifiable. This gives the industry a stronger foundation than many sectors possess when addressing fatality prevention.

The task now is to turn that knowledge into an open and coordinated programme of action: stronger data sharing, improved cross-company learning, practical agreement on critical controls and a willingness to treat fatality reduction as a shared strategic objective rather than solely a matter of compliance.

For ports and terminals, the challenge is serious, but it is also solvable. The evidence does not point to a mystery; it points to a choice. The sector can use the clarity of established risk patterns to drive an increasingly disciplined and collective response.

If pursued with purpose, through high-quality standards, meaningful engagement and genuine collaboration across the port–ship interface, the industry has every reason to believe the next decade can be safer than the last.

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