Answer
A –Formal Safety Assessment- Structured process of enhancing maritime safety by risk analysis and cost benefit assessment. Whenever a convention or a framework of convention are adopted, we use FSA to reduce the risk in that area. Introduced by IMO through MEPC meeting.
FSA is a structured and systematic methodology, aimed at enhancing maritime safety, including protection of life, health, the marine environment and property, by using risk analysis and cost benefit assessment. FSA can be used as a tool to help in the evaluation of new regulations for maritime safety and protection of the marine environment or in making a comparison between existing and possibly improved regulations, with a view to achieving a balance between the various technical and operational issues, including the human element, and between maritime safety or protection of the marine environment and costs.
FSA consists of five steps:
identification of hazards (a list of all relevant accident scenarios with potential causes and outcomes);
assessment of risks (evaluation of risk factors);
risk control options (devising regulatory measures to control and reduce the identified risks);
cost benefit assessment (determining cost effectiveness of each risk control option); and
recommendations for decision-making (information about the hazards, their associated risks and the cost effectiveness of alternative risk control options is provided).
