Future Directions for Human-Centered Transparent Systems for Engine Room Monitoring in Shore Control Centers

Many autonomous ship projects have reflected the increasing interest in incorporating the concept of autonomy into the maritime transportation sector. However, autonomy is not a silver bullet, as exemplified by many incidents in the past involving human and machine interaction; rather it introduces new Human Factor (HF) challenges. These challenges are especially critical for Engine Room Monitoring (ERM) in Shore Control Centre (SCCs) due to the system’s complexity and the absence of human senses in the decision-making process. A transparent system is one of the potential solutions, providing a rationale behind its suggestion. However, diverse implementations of transparency schemes have resulted in prevalent inconsistencies in its effects. This literature review paper investigates 17 transparency studies published over the last eight years to identify (a) different approaches to developing transparent systems, (b) the effects of transparency on key HFs, and (c) the effects of information presentation methods and uncertainty information. The findings suggest that the explicit presentation of information could strengthen the benefits of the transparent system and could be promising for performance improvements in ERM tasks in the SCC.