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IMarEST raises crew safety concern as IMO debates engineroom alarms
Institute of marine engineers tells the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that folding in engineroom alarms under regulations covering bridge alerts when revising performance standards risks seafarers’ safety
The Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology’s (IMarEST) technical and policy director Alasdair Wishart wants IMO to separate engineroom alarms from bridge alerts when revising international legislation and guidelines, and to introduce “dedicated performance standards" for engineroom alarm systems.
During an IMO subcommittee meeting covering ship design and construction (SDC 12) in London in January 2026, delegates considered safety concerns and actions to reduce risks to seafarers.
Several discussions focused on how to improve safety within machinery spaces, including evacuation and the danger to engineers from engineroom fires.
As part of the debate at SDC 12, IMarEST intervened with a specific proposal that IMO consider introducing dedicated performance standards for engineroom alarm systems.
"We are urging the IMO to develop standalone standards"
“IMO is currently considering whether the new standard could sit within the existing bridge alert management standard,” said Mr Wishart. “However, the operational needs of bridge teams and engineering teams are fundamentally different," he said.
"We believe combining the standards will risk introducing new hazards for our seafarers, especially as vessels become more complex due to automation.”
IMarEST lodged its intervention at SDC 12 to call for the introduction of dedicated performance standards based on an existing set of standards developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission. The standards regulate the numbers, types and priority of engineroom alerts to prevent engineers from becoming overwhelmed, thereby threatening the safe operation of vessels.
“We are urging IMO to develop standalone standards using the IEC 62682 framework, which already provides a lifecycle approach to alarm systems,” said Mr Wishart. “As the global body representing marine engineers, we believe tailored standards are essential to protect those working in increasingly complex enginerooms," he continued. "We are ready to support IMO’s important work to ensure better and safer working conditions.”
IMO is currently also considering introducing new standards for bridge alerts to reduce the number of alerts seafarers need to respond to daily, which experts have said leads to alarm fatigue and ship incidents.
Performance standards for alarm systems on ships would aim to reduce the number of alarms faced by crew and prioritise those alerting crew of serious and potentially dangerous issues.
Also at SDC 12, the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) submitted several documents related to improving ship safety to support work on revising chapters in SOLAS and other guidelines.
These included work on standards for escape arrangements from machinery spaces and evacuating enginerooms during fires.
IACS supported SDC’s analysis for approving the safe use of existing arrangements. Evacuation times from machinery spaces were compared using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of fire scenarios in the engineroom of a container ship, to assess the risks associated with elevated access to emergency escape trunks and the potential benefit of lowering the access point to lower decks.
IACS said these studies “demonstrated that an emergency escape trunk which does not extend to the lowest deck level provides equivalent or shorter evacuation times to a safe location than an escape trunk extending to the lowest deck level.”
The CFD simulations “demonstrated that there is no measurable impact of an emergency escape trunk with an inclined ladder on the crew’s ability to evacuate safely and swiftly during a fire,” said IACS. “SOLAS regulations do not need to be revised in relation to requirements for escape from enginerooms.”
In other areas of ship safety, IACS submitted documents supporting IMO’s work plan for the revision of SOLAS chapter VIII and the Code of Safety for Nuclear Merchant Ships (resolution A.491(XII)).
SDC 12/9/6 identifies the “essential need for intergovernmental collaboration founded upon a globally harmonised liability regime,” said IACS. “In support of this, the document encourages non-safety-related facets of the code to be distributed across both MEPC and FAL committees.”
In another IACS document submission, SDC 12/14 proposes amendments to the guidelines for plastic pipes on ships (resolution A.753(18)) with a view to aligning it with the latest developments in plastic pipes and joint technology.
SDC 12/INF.2 informs SDC 12 about the publication of IACS recommendation 189, for determining the equivalent level of safety required by the Polar Code, to assign a polar ship class category to ships not assigned with an IACS Polar Class but ice-strengthened in compliance with another standard.
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