A Cruise Ship Safety Scorecard, which aims to raise the bar on quality, consistency, and efficiency, is being introduced by the US Coast Guard’s Cruise Ship National Centre of Expertise (CSNCOE).
Brad Schoenwald, USCG Senior Marine Inspector, explained that the scorecard has been a long term goal of the CSNCOE and had been under development for over 10 years.
“We recognised how well the scoring system for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Programmes incentivised positive performance from the ships crews. Their score brought awareness to the public and, more importantly, gave the ships’ crew an identifiable result of how well they were doing to maintain compliance.
“These scores are incorporated as a key performance indicator (KPI) within the major cruise lines’ corporate performance measurements,” he said.
In developing the Cruise Ship Scorecard, however, the main goal was to provide a measurement of how well USCG examiners performed while completing examinations.
Developing a USCG score first required establishment of a quality examination process to be consistently followed and audited.
