Sammendrag
Car ferries may face severe consequences during an emergency at sea. There is a high potential of human losses if not proper crisis management has been carried out. During the last 10 years, ferry crews have been reduced, and the conflict regarding manning and crisis management between ferry crews and their companies have reached higher peaks. In this study we explore the perceptions of ferry crew member’s capacity for carrying out emergency preparedness tasks in case of a car fire on deck. We distributed a questionnaire to car ferry crew members and got 924 answers (39% response rate), where the respondents were asked to determine the likelihood of given tasks to be completed. The tasks ranged from simple communication tasks like “give directions via radio” to more complex tasks like “extinguish the fire” and “gain control over panicking passengers”. A similar questionnaire was distributed to passengers via open links on Facebook and posters at ferry docks and we got 1397 answers. In the analysis we compare the results from the passengers’ and the crew members’ perceptions. The results showed that passengers, compared to crew members, have a significantly higher positive perception of the likelihood of emergency preparedness tasks to be fulfilled. In the discussion, we explore the underlying cause of these results, and give some implications for further work in the industry and research.