# Analyzing Port State Control Data to Explore Future Improvements to GMDSS Training
## 1 Introduction
The ship ran aground, resulting in 20 fatalities, 2 missing persons, and the rescue of 4197 passengers and crew members [39]. There are not too many studies focused on radio communications inspections by PSCO. It is worth highlighting that the study focused on how the communications logbook is filled out [40]. That is why the main objective of this study is to analyze the data on communications deficiencies provided by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) over 18 years, which includes 27 maritime authorities covering the maritime zone of Europe and the North Atlantic (Atlantic coast of Canada). The Memorandum aims to improve maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment through the inspection and control of the condition of foreign ships and their equipment, which call at ports in the Member States. Therefore, the challenges of maritime safety analysis and the perspective used to quantify risks were analyzed before, for example [41]. Among other things, the need to consider the periodicity of inspections according to the risk profile of the vessel has also been discussed, for example [42]. The inspections make it possible to control compliance with the regulatory requirements included in international regulations on maritime safety, pollution prevention, and living and working conditions on foreign ships that use ports or facilities located in national jurisdictional waters. It is worth highlighting the contributions of other researchers in the detailed analysis of these inspections, such as verifications of the conditions of the ship, its equipment, or its crew [26; 28; 29]. There are nine other Memoranda that cover, with some exceptions, all the ports of the world. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that even the effectiveness of the PSC has been questioned, being one of the reasons that the methods adopted to select the vessels were not appropriate [43]. Some aspects of the inspections have been questioned [44]. Some authors criticize the inspections of the Port State of Venezuela, considering the lack of PSCOs and good practice guides for conducting inspections [45]. Another study warns about some parameters that determine the presence of accidents in the area, including meteorological conditions and the geographical particularities of some high-traffic routes [46]. Among the highest-risk areas identified were the United Kingdom, Denmark, Singapore, and Shanghai (China). Three main objectives support this study. Firstly, based on data on deficiencies in radio communications, (i) classify and order these vessels based on risk criteria, and then filter those that pose a high risk to safety in terms of communications. At least two classifiers are going to be proposed and applied. One is based on the ships that present defective codes that can lead to detention, and the other is focused on those ships affected by defective codes that are closely related to the training and competencies of the OOWs on board the ship. These two classifiers are developed under \"hypothesis 1\". This hypothesis proposes that it is more accurate to use as a risk indicator in maritime communications the number of times a ship has had a radio inspection with GMDSS-related findings than the number of failures found in the aforementioned inspections. Secondly, (ii) analyze the relationship between the potential risk of maritime safety linked to communications at sea and different explanatory variables, especially the ship flag, ship type, and age of the ship. Using the literature, check whether the subsets of ships classified as showing the worst performance in safety communications at sea coincide with the same factors that influence the risks in the rest of the inspection areas onboard ships. Finally, (iii) draw some lessons that could be applied to obtaining the GOC certificate and keep important knowledge and skills up to date by studying the data that warn of possible deficiencies in the competencies of onboard personnel in charge of maritime communications.