VSC DATA COLLECTION
William S. Griswold
Presentation Agenda
1
USCG Strategic Plan
2
NASBLA Work Group
3
Project purpose
4
Results to date
5
Q&A
2
STRATEGIC PLAN
of the
National Recreational Boating Safety Program
2012-2016
Objective 8: Operator Compliance – USCG Required Safety
Equipment
Increase compliance levels for specific required safety
equipment on recreational boats.
Strategy 8.1 – Evaluate Incidents of Non-Compliance with
specific USCG Required Safety Equipment
NASBLA
Engineering, Reporting & Analysis Committee (ERAC)
Charge C-3: Conduct an analysis of data derived from
the United Safe Boating Institute (and affiliated
organizations) efforts to capture Vessel Safety Check
(VSC) data to determine what meaningful trends
can be identified from the initial data collection.
[National RBS Plan Performance Goal for reducing casualties; RBS Obj.
8, Operator Compliance-Required Safety Equipment; NASBLA’s
strategic goal of conducting research for evaluating RBS program
efforts and informing decision makers.]
4
Purpose of the VSC Data Collection Project
Make better use of data from the VSC
Process
5
USBI – United Safe Boating Institute
• Undertook project, funded by CG grant &
Involving two parent organizations:
– USCG Auxiliary
– United States Power Squadrons (USPS)
6
Determine Why Vessels Fail VSCs
CG Aux in CY 12 - 119,987 vessel exams
98,408 passed (74.5%)
30,579 FAILED
Compare with Accident Data
Correlations ? Trends? Regional Differences?
Archive for Other Future Uses
Incorporate in future data collection systems
7
• AUXDATA is on life support
• No funds to change VSC collection
• Trial run 10 years ago – not possible
• Why USBI?
• Represents both CGAux & USPS
• Has an existing web site for collection
8
• Gather only important information
• Only need info from exams that FAILED
• No personal information, but some other
info that’s already captured on form 7012
9
Form 7012
Used by both
USPS & CGAux
10
Auxiliary Examiners
• Will be asked to complete their VSCs as
always
• For those vessels that fail, the examiner will
go to the web page at
http://www.usbi.org/vsc.php
and enter the reasons the vessel failed
11
12
USPS EXAMINER AT WORK
13
USPS Vessel Examiners
•
Will be asked to complete their VSCs
with the additional data asked for
•
The Squadron VSC Chairs will enter the
VSC data on a newly designed USPS
input page rather than the existing page
•
This data will be passed to the USBI
database to be merged with the
Auxiliary data
MEASUREMENT
• To see if this pilot program is capturing
significant data, we can compare number
of VSC failures in each state between
AUXDATA and the Pilot Program
• This measurement might help future
changes
15
ANALYSIS – so far
Data collected is up to end of 2012
Hurricane Sandy flooded CGAux host equipment
Oct. 29, shutting down web site for 2 months
USPS data intact – National input from most states
CGAux data incomplete – mainly from 5 test states –
MI, MO, NC, TX & WA + 4 – FL, IL, MD, WY
TOTAL FAILED EXAMS – 3,592
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Focusing on 5 reasons which could cause an
accident, reports show % of total failures:
•
Fire Extinguishers
18%
•
Life Jackets
8%
•
Navigation Lights
8%
•
Visual Distress Signals
6%
•
Sound Device
3%
Notes: An examination may result in a failure for more than one reason
These differences are statistically significant
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Probability of Failure:
•
•
•
•
•
Fire Extinguishers
Life Jackets
Navigation Lights
Visual Distress Signals
Sound Device
30%
13%
13%
10%
6%
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USPS – 44 States + Washington DC + Puerto Rico
3119 failed VSC’s with
5,398 reasons failed
CGAux – 5 pilot states + 4 others
471 failed VSC’s with
778 reasons failed
Overall average 1.7 items failed per exam
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Summary table of failures
5 out of a possible 15 failure categories
Reason
for
Failure
CGAux
Failures
CGAux
% of Fail.
USPS
Failures
USPS
% of Fail.
Total
Failures
% of Total
Failures
PFD
30
4%
461
8%
491
4%
VDS
176
23 %
200
4%
376
6%
Fire Ext.
73
9%
1,027
19 %
1,100
18 %
Sound
55
7%
154
3%
209
3%
Nav Lts.
156
20 %
332
6%
488
8%
TOTAL of
778
All 15
categories
5,398
6,176
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Differences in failure probability by
organization
21
• Possible reasons for differences in failure
patterns
– Lack of consistency in criteria used by each
organization
– Differences in boat populations being
examined by the two organizations (locations,
size of boats, other)
22
VISUAL DISTRESS SIGNALS (VDS)
• CGAux reported 176 VDS failures – 31%
were on Inland Waters
• USPS reported 200 VDS failures – 52%
were on Inland Waters
• Some concern about Federal requirements,
State requirements on Inland Waters and
Vessel Examiners getting it right
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Other Interesting Facts
• 55% of USPS “Pollution Placard” failures were
on vessels <26 feet – not a Fed. Requirement
• 75 (2%) of total reported failures (3590) had
no failures, VSC was passed
• Florida had the highest # failures – 12%,
Ohio and Michigan had 11% each
• These three states had 34% of the reported
failures , 18% of registered boats, and 21%
of reported boating accidents
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Location
Area
CGAux
USPS
TOTAL
Coastal
190
1,265
1,455
% of
TOTAL
41%
Inland
258
1,743
2,001
56%
River
23
111
134
4%
TOTAL
471
3,119
3,590
25
SIZE OF VESSEL
Length
CGAux
USPS
TOTAL
% OF
TOTAL
Unknown
<16 Feet
25 Feet
0
114
263
6
414
1,419
6
528
1,682
0
15
47
39 Feet
65 Feet
>65 Feet
75
14
5
971
309
0
1,046
323
5
29
9
0
TOTAL
471
3,119
3,590
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PROBILITY OF FAILURE BY LENGTH
Type
|
Under 25’
|
Over 25’
|
TOTAL
Number
Probability Number
Probability
Number
Probability
1352
.6098
959
.6980
2311
.6436
Fire Ext 606
.2733
493
.3588
1099
.3060
Lights
321
.1448
167
.1215
488
.1359
PFD
312
.1407
146
.1063
458
.1275
VDS
263
.1186
113
.0822
376
.1047
Sound
129
.0582
80
.0582
209
.0582
Other
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And in Conclusion
• This project is a long term wish to use VSC’s as a
vehicle to determine why boats fail, where they
are and what they don’t have on board
• Perhaps, we can correlate carriage deficiencies
with boating accidents
• Other data bases have not been able to tell us
why; maybe our method will help direct our
educational efforts, and public awareness
initiatives
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Check Us Out
http://www.usbi.org/
We are glad to be partners with
NASBLA
NSBC
NWSC
If you have any questions, please contact
us
wsgriz@aol.com
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Q & A time
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