This study aims to identify the degree of safety when mariners take their actions in several different situations. We have carried out many experiments to observe mariners' behavior and then measured the safety level based on their actions to avoid dangerous situations of ships collision. One of the most important actions that mariners have to take, either as their daily routine or when they are in a collision situation and then want to avoid that situation is the lookout. In this paper, behaviors on the lookout have been defined as a standard sequence of three steps which are "time of first detection", "time of recognition as risky vessel" and "time of starting avoiding action", and the suitability and applicability of the definition have been shown. And also we propose the risk assessment on ships collision and the recommendation for reducing ships collision at sea. Some analyzing results and the application of the results are reported. By combining these knowledge and some systematic studies, we propose the risk assessment on ships collision and the recommendation for reducing ships collision at sea.

The safety degree of navigation for collision avoidance is closely related with the combination between mariner's behavior and navigational environment. The condition of navigational environment is mainly decided by navigable waters, ship traffic, rule of road, sea state, weather and so on. Especially, the condition of navigable waters and ship traffic in navigational environment are ones of the important factors to attain safe navigation when mariners are underway and crossing, head on or overtaking situation. Thus this paper is to analyze the characteristics of mariner's behavior for collision avoidance caused by ship traffic and navigable waters by analyzing the contents of questionnaire and the results of international collaborative research. As a result, it can be concluded that the density of ship traffic and the area of navigable waters affect mariner's ship handling for collision avoidance.

It can be said that the relationship between the maneuvering ability of operators and the navigational environment affects the safe degree of navigation in the collision avoidance situation. In order to reduce the occurrence probability of accident and to maintain the safety, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between human behavior and navigational environment. In this study, therefore, we analyzed and discussed the relationship between the maneuvering characteristics and the safety focused on human behavior as a fundamental factor of marine accidents using ship handling simulator and questionnaire. As a result, we concluded that navigational environment changes variously and the maneuvering ability of operators also varies with the navigational environment, and the ship handling characteristics strongly affect the occurrence probability of accident.