# Human Factor Issues in Remote Ship Operations: Lesson Learned by Studying Different Domains
###### Abstract  
The idea of remote controlling ships for operational and commercial uses has developed beyond concepts. Controlling and monitoring vessels from a distant location requires updating the concept and requirements of shore control centers (SCCs), where human operators control the fleet via cameras, GPS, and many other types of sensors. While remote ship operation promises to reduce operational and maintenance costs, while increasing loading capacity and safety, it also brings significant uncertainty related to both the human-machine and human-human interactions which will affect operations. Achieving safe, reliable, and efficient remote ship operations requires consideration of both technological, cultural, social and human factor aspects of the system. Indeed, operators will act as captain and crew remotely, from the SCC, introducing new types of hardware and software interactions. This paper provides an overview of human factor issues that may affect human-machine and human-human interactions in the course of remote ship operations. In doing so, the literature related to remote operations in the domains of shipping, aerial vehicles, cranes, train transportation, automobiles, and mining is reviewed. Findings revealed that human factor issues are likely to fall into 13 distinct groups based on the type of human interactions that take place in SCCs.  
remote ship operations; human factor issues; human-machine interactions +
Footnote †: journal: Marine Science and Engineering  
systems follow well-established international regulations, whereas the implementation of SCCs is not standardized and companies develop their own SCCs.  
Since human operators play a key role in monitoring and supervising remote ships from SCCs, human factors can significantly affect the performance and reliability of remote ships. On the other hand, remote ship operations are in the early stages and few SCCs have been implemented as a consequence of testing remote operations. Hence, investigating remote control experiences in different domains will help to improve the efficiency and reliability of SCCs in remote ship operations.  
This paper investigates remote operations that have been implemented in different domains in the literature to identify the human factors that affect remote operations. In doing so, more than 50 articles were analyzed in order to identify factors that can affect remote ship operations; in particular, remote operations in SCCs. Then, inductive coding was utilized to categorize factors into human factors that affect human-human and human-machine interactions. As a result, 13 human factors were identified that can affect remote operations in SCCs, of which, three factors affect human-human interactions, eight factors affect human-machine interactions and two factors can affect both human-human and human-machine interactions.  
The rest of this paper consists of three main parts. Section 2 presents the background and definitions, while Section 3 presents the methods used for the literature review. Section 4 classifies human factor issues identified in different domains. Finally, Section 5 concludes the study and mentions the limitations and future research directions.