This meeting marked the culmination of a year’s pilot project of a collaborative effort among domestic ferry company members of the Chamber to work proactively and openly to improve safety performance for passengers and crew.

The Domestic Ferry Safety Indicator DFSI is a monthly statistical benchmarking tool where safety data is shared in a safe, secure and anonymised way for UK domestic ferry operators to learn from one another to enhance the collective safety culture.

The steering group brought together representatives from each of the founding members, CalMac, Wightlink, Red Funnel, Hovertravel and Serco Northlink, as well as a prospective representation from Western Ferries, who discussed strategies for sharing information, improving communication, and addressing common issues faced by ferry operators, including carriage of lithium-ion batteries. The steering group was able to finalise the Terms of Reference and launch the development of a digital sharing platform which will allow members to share best practices, incident reports and learnings in a private and secure way.

The DFSI Steering Group will meet four times a year, two virtual and two in-person meetings to be hosted by an operator at their port. These meetings will facilitate safety leadership and learning through a collaborative information-sharing approach and deep dive into relevant safety-related topics.

The DFSI Steering Group is excited and looks forward to being able to welcome other interested domestic ferry operators by the summer, and any domestic ferry operators who would like to express an interest in joining are encouraged to reach out to William Rann.  Others interested in the initiative but not domestic ferry operators may contact him for further information.

Names of people in the photo from right to left: William Rann, Jon Stage, Will Lins, Robert Merrylees, Leanna Lakes, Louis de Wolff, Barry Smith, Graeme Fletcher, Conor McGarry.

Attending remotely were: Amber Johnson and Brenden Beattie.