An Adaptive System Based on Situation Awareness for Goal-Driven Management in Container Terminals

Lack of situation awareness when dealing with complex dynamic environments is recognized as one of the main causes of human errors that may lead to serious incidents, poor performance, etc. Thus, there is a need to define systems able to support operators in focusing their attention on active goals and, when really needed, switching them on more suitable goals, in a sort of continuous adaptation. This paper proposes an adaptive goal selection approach capable of suggesting the goal on which human operators should focus their attention to maintain an adequate level of situation awareness. The approach has been implemented in a Decision Support System for the management of operations in a port container terminal. An evaluation of the system applied to the container terminal of Salerno (Italy) has been realized by using the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT), a well-known methodology for evaluating SA in operational contexts. An evaluation of the performance has been executed to demonstrate that the approach helps to improve the performance of the logistics operations.