Arahura photo (c) Simon Brown

Interislander's innovative system for managing dangerous goods on board its Cook Strait ferries is up for an International Safety at Sea award. The system, developed and launched by Interislander last year, increases safety by ensuring dangerous goods manifests are as accurate as possible. It was selected as one of 15 finalists out of 80 nominations from organisations around the globe for the Safety at Sea awards.

The winners will be announced on June 14 onboard the historic HMS Belfast in London.

Interislander general manager Thomas Davis said the new system, called Passport, not only saved time for customers filling in the forms needed to send dangerous goods by sea but also strengthened Interislander's commitment to the safety of customers and staff by ensuring that it was as easy as possible to declare dangerous goods. He said all three of Interislander's ferries are equipped to transport dangerous goods, with staff trained in the safe handling of these cargoes.

Each year, Interislander carries approximately 1.15 billion kilograms of dangerous goods, including explosives through to LPG tankers to radioactive materials. The majority of dangerous goods are transported on freight-only sailings, but Passport allowed Interislander to do that more effectively, Mr Davis said.

Before Passport was introduced, customers wanting to transport dangerous goods had to fill in paper-based forms. Manifests were often handwritten, were hard to decipher and not uniform in format. About five each a day had incorrect information.

Passport does not allow the user to submit an incomplete manifest. As customers complete the online fields, the system alerts them if the information they are entering is conflicting, or not permitted – that is, something or an amount Interislander could not carry. Mr Davis said that meant only accurate, completed forms are able to be submitted. "For our customers it means that once submitted their job is done. For Interislander it means we have accurate, uniform information about the goods we are transporting, it is a win-win situation. "The importance of having accurate and easy to read manifests is paramount for us. If an emergency situation occurred onboard one of our ships carrying dangerous goods we would immediately refer to the manifest. The right information in this instance could be a life saver."

Source : Marlborough Express