The Safe Return to Port (SRTP) regulations, effective for passenger vessels with keels laid on or after 1 July 2010, have reshaped the design requirements for modern ships. Shipyards and designers must now demonstrate that vessel designs achieve a specific level of redundancy across critical onboard systems. The core principle is that the vessel is its own best lifeboat, ensuring the continued availability of vital systems to safeguard life at sea.

The Challenge

The impact of SRTP regulations on the design of passenger vessels is profound. Shipyards are required to assess the survivability and redundancy of a wide range of systems onboard, evaluating the consequences of both direct and subsequent damage caused by fire and flooding, not only in that compartment but ship-wide.

For large passenger vessels and cruise ships, accommodating thousands of passengers and crew, the complexity of achieving compliance becomes vast. These systems are interdependent, and their failure could have widespread consequences, making rigorous, comprehensive and repeatable analysis essential.

The Solution: Systema™

Systema™ is an advanced software tool designed to meet the challenges of safety compliance. It allows users to create a digital twin of a vessel’s systems, combining location data with a dependency model. Using a 2.5D modelling approach, Systema™ minimises modelling time and improves overall efficiency. 

Users can define system availability criteria for critical SRTP systems and analyse the entire model against various damage scenarios, including fire, flooding, and MVZ incidents. This is the only way to ensure a comprehensive analysis of system redundancy and identify critical spaces, piping, cabling and items of equipment.

Why Systema™ Over Traditional Methods?

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis remains a widely used approach to solve this problem, but it is highly manual and dependent on individual expertise. It is not repeatable and cannot effectively manage “what if” scenarios, or extend to post-refit modifications.

Systema™ revolutionises SRTP compliance by leveraging digital tools to deliver:

• Repeatable and scalable analysis for consistent results.
• Comprehensive scenario testing to identify risks early.
• Post-refit extendability, ensuring compliance throughout the vessel’s lifecycle.

Benefits Beyond Compliance

Systema™ embraces digitisation to deliver value across the ship’s lifecycle. Its flexibility and efficiency make it the ultimate tool for shipyards, designers, and operators seeking to simplify compliance and reduce rework.

Our Services: Consultancy and Support

Safety at Sea works closely with your design process to deliver Safe Return to Port (SRTP) analysis throughout the design cycle, helping your business achieve regulatory compliance with ease.

Engaging us early in the design phase offers significant advantages. We can:

• Help define your overall SRTP philosophy.
• Collaborate on building system models in Systema™.
• Provide expert advice on critical compliance issues, reducing rework and ensuring compliance from the start.

Contact us today to discuss how we can support your project.

Systema™: Your Complete Software Solution

Systema™: Your Complete Software Solution

Systema™ delivers a proven and comprehensive SOLAS Safe Return to Port solution, supporting the design, verification, and approval of ship system redundancies. The software provides evidence for Class and Flag compliance while enabling detailed, casualty-based assessments.

From initial design to the vessel’s entire lifecycle, Systema™ ensures effective compliance at every stage.