A review on risk assessment methods for maritime transport

Maritime transport is intimately tied to the global economy and trade. Research on maritime transport risk is of great significance to prevent maritime accidents and enhance the safety of maritime transport. However, the development background and trend of risk assessment methods are not clear. Given the increasingly complex and variable transport conditions, it is challenging for people to quickly find an efficient assessment method that can fit the actual needs outside their familiar methods. Therefore, it is necessary to sort the risk assessment methods from a modeling perspective. This paper analyzed the literature of 1181 papers related to maritime transport risk from 2000 to 2021 and conducted a specific analysis of risk assessment methods according to the general process of risk assessment. In addition, this paper reviewed the data processing methods commonly used in the field of maritime transport risk. Finally, we categorized the trends of maritime transport risk assessment methods according to different progressive levels of the system composition. Through the review, we found that maritime transport risk assessment methods are evolving toward a systematic and comprehensive direction, and the integration with artificial intelligence methods may be the next bellwether. •A bibliometric analysis was performed on 1181 relevant papers from 2000 to 2021.•The maritime transport risk assessment methods were classified and comparatively analyzed.•A systematic composition hierarchy vein was used to sort out the trends of risk assessment methods.