# Voice Communication Systems Impact on Navigating Officers
## 3 Results
### Call Importance and Distraction  
To determine the importance of incoming calls and how much they influence the performance of an OOW, the seafarers were asked to state how many calls they consider as non-important for the ship's safety, i.e., how many calls were experienced as distracting. The results have shown that seafarers perceive 45% of all incoming calls as low priority and distracting in the moment of occurrence. The interviewed seafarers have confirmed that during watch keeping and in periods of high-level workload, it would be very useful to somehow avoid (redirect or decline) 45% of incoming calls. The next question of the survey, which asked the participants to state the most common examples of distracting calls, has given quite similar and extensive answers. The most common nature of distracting calls via satellite and mobile phone include commercial details of the actual voyage, ship's position, voyage progress and cargo planning details for the next voyage. Shipping companies and/or ship/cargo owners make these calls, although they receive a number of comprehensive written reports on a daily basis. The most common distracting calls made by the ship's crew through the internal phone system and UHF radio were: an inquiry, namely _where are we?_ or _when are we coming?_; a confirmation of the ship's position by the engine officer even though there is a GNSS repeater in the engine control room (usually for the use of incinerators, bilge systems, etc. ); a request for the bridge OOW to call a crew member in the watch of other departments; various premature requests for information about the next port, berth, side to which the ship will berth, etc. ; inquiries from waiters asking where the chief officer is in order to get a permission to throw food leftovers overboard; reporting on the entry/exit of each person in/from an enclosed space (which should be organized differently); and a number of other examples of private communication between crew members and crew members on watch on the bridge. The OOW on the bridge may be in different demanding situations during navigation, which for some officers may increase the workload level significantly. Rather common demanding situations include navigation in dense traffic areas, coastal navigation, avoiding collision maneuvering, waypoint turn, communication with external subjects (e.g., vessel traffic service or other ships in vicinity), planning the alteration of the actual voyage, etc. While executing a certain procedure (a series of actions of one or more tasks), if distracted, the officer must pause the procedure until the distraction is over. Therefore, when the officer returns to the paused procedure, they need some time to perceive where they were interrupted and what should be the next action. In some cases, a certain interrupted action or a task has to be started from the beginning. The OOW has to answer the incoming calls on the bridge. They should answer the internal phone system calls or a UHF radio calls as soon as possible, because the call could be related to the ship's safety or security. This responsibility is often laid down in the Master's standing orders or some other documents in the ship's safety management system describing the OOW responsibilities. On the other hand, the incoming calls through the satellite or ship's mobile phone refer mostly to the commercial activities and not to the ship's safety, thus, the OOW can choose whether it is appropriate to answer the call or not, depending on the prevailing situation on the bridge. However, in most of the cases, the officers answer such calls no matter the situation on the bridge. The interviewed seafarers have stated that such behavior is noted among younger officers, because they perceive these calls as very important ones and they want to avoid discussions as why they were not able to take a call from the influential company persons.