New patrol vessel for the port of Rotterdam

The Port of Rotterdam has built 7 new vessels for harbor patrol with extra capabilities for incident control. These vessels come into action in a fulltime operation (7x24 hours) and have capabilities for fire-fighting, spill-control, salvage operations and the removal of objects (for example cars) from the water. All in all these vessels are the eyes, ears and hands of the Port Authority. In the early stages of the design process vhp ergonomics was involved with the design of the complete vessel. Especially the workplaces of the steersmen turned out to be critical, due to the large amount of devices in use. An extra high demand is the control during calamities, in which the steersmen wear gas suits. The design of the workplace has radically been changed compared with the old ships, especially by the central positioning of several computer devices. To test the designs a complete mock-up of the bridge was built. See also: Control software patrol vessel