Seafarer Fatigue: a qualitative study of customer-facing staff working on UK ferries

This study explores the experiences and opinions of customer-facing seafaring staff on the subject of fatigue and how it affects their work and interactions with passengers. This group is of particular interest as were there to be an emergency at sea it is those in customer-facing roles that would take responsibility for passenger safety.

Data was collected from focus groups with customer-facing staff (n = 45 participants across nine discussions).

Fatigue was seen to be a problem, with all focus group participants having experienced sleepiness while at work and being able to detect fatigue in others. Factors identified as contributors to fatigue included: commuting, external factors such as the weather and onboard noise and shift and roster patterns. A variety of informal, self-devised (that is, not directed by a manager) countermeasures were being employed by the focus group participants, with caffeine in the form of coffee being the most common. Participating seafarers suggested that adrenaline carries them through emergency situations so that fatigue experienced after an incident was more of a concern to them than that encountered during it.

The research represents one of the first qualitative studies to subjectively investigate fatigue amongst customer-facing staff on UK ferries, understanding their lived experience is a first step toward mitigating sleep related risks for this job role. Recommendations for ferry operating companies are made.