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Digitizing Pilotage Safety for Global Maritime Standards

  • Real-Time Reporting
  • Cloud Architecture
  • Custom Application
  • Offline Engagement
  • Scalable User Roles
  • Human Centered Design

"Actiknow’s expertise as a custom application development company has been instrumental in streamlining our pilotage safety assessments. Their intuitive and reliable app has empowered our maritime pilots to ensure safer ship transfers effortlessly."

The Challenge: Improving Transfer Safety Through Seamless Digital Reporting

Ensuring safe ship transfers is one of the most critical responsibilities for maritime pilots. The International Maritime Pilots’ Association (IMPA), which represents pilots globally, recognized the urgent need to modernize its ship transfer safety assessment process. Previously reliant on manual forms and paper-based reports, pilots faced inefficiencies in logging data while navigating unpredictable and often remote maritime environments.

Safety assessments are crucial not just for compliance, but for the direct well-being of pilots, ship crews, and vessels. Paper-based processes often resulted in data delays, missing reports, or inconsistent information. Without a standardized digital system, it was difficult to extract meaningful trends or insights from safety feedback across different regions and pilot networks.

The challenge was clear: create a solution that worked both online and offline, enabled pilots to quickly submit safety assessments in real-time, ensured reliability in extreme maritime conditions, and met the rigorous expectations of international safety bodies like the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The Solution: A Custom Mobile App Built for Pilots, by Experts in the Field

ActiKnow, a trusted name in custom application development, was engaged to design and develop a mobile survey platform tailored specifically for the needs of IMPA pilots. ActiKnow’s experience in developing solutions for highly regulated environments—such as transportation, logistics, and infrastructure—made them the ideal partner.

The result was a sleek, robust mobile survey app built for Android and iOS platforms with:

  • Rapid Survey Entry: Pilots can document their experience and complete standardized safety surveys in minutes.
  • Offline Capability: The app functions without internet access and syncs securely when back online.
  • Real-Time Reporting: Safety confirmations and logs are sent instantly to central systems, enabling real-time monitoring.
  • User-Centered Interface: Streamlined for ease of use with minimal friction in high-pressure situations.
  • Cloud Integration: Secure cloud connectivity ensures data safety, integrity, and centralized access for IMPA leadership.
  • Role-Based Access Control: Ensures only verified users can access sensitive safety data.
  • Audit Trails: Every action is timestamped, supporting transparency and compliance.

This digital-first tool aligned with international safety standards, such as those outlined by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), while being user-friendly enough for adoption across multiple pilot networks globally.

Pilot-Centric Design: Making Safety Tools Truly Useful

A key factor in the app’s success was ActiKnow’s human-centered design process. They conducted multiple pilot interviews, usability tests, and feedback cycles to ensure that the tool was aligned with the daily workflows of its users.

For example, voice-to-text capabilities were integrated to support hands-free data entry in harsh or weather-exposed conditions. Color-coded alerts and status flags were added to highlight critical safety issues. The onboarding experience was made frictionless through single sign-on (SSO) compatibility with IMPA's existing identity infrastructure.

These thoughtful touches helped transform the app from a digital form into a genuinely empowering tool for maritime pilots.

The Results: Streamlined Safety Reporting and Increased Operational Confidence

IMPA’s new digital survey system has fundamentally improved how maritime pilots assess transfer safety. By reducing manual reporting friction, the mobile app has:

  • Cut average reporting time by 55%, allowing pilots to focus more on core duties.
  • Increased survey submission accuracy, minimizing errors that previously resulted from paper-based reporting.
  • Enabled real-time visibility into regional safety trends, allowing leadership to proactively address transfer risks.
  • Improved pilot engagement and compliance, thanks to the app’s intuitive design and offline convenience.
  • Enhanced policy review cycles, with more timely and granular safety data available for analysis.

As a result, IMPA can now collect high-quality safety data across hundreds of ports worldwide, turning each pilot’s feedback into actionable maritime safety intelligence.

Expanding a Digital Framework for Safer Maritime Practices

With maritime logistics under global pressure to improve resilience and safety, the use of purpose-built digital tools is no longer optional. According to a 2023 report by BIMCO, 90% of port authorities cite pilotage as a high-priority safety concern, while Lloyd’s Register predicts a 40% increase in demand for maritime digital infrastructure by 2027.

The success of the app has inspired discussions within IMPA about standardizing digital assessments as part of broader regulatory frameworks. Other pilot organizations are now evaluating similar implementations for internal benchmarking and global data collaboration.

Plans are already underway to evolve the app’s capabilities to include:

  • Predictive analytics for identifying high-risk ship transfer scenarios.
  • Multilingual support to improve adoption among pilots in non-English-speaking regions.
  • Integrations with maritime training simulators to enhance pilot education.
  • Custom dashboards for port authorities, enabling more responsive safety measures.
  • API connectivity with AIS (Automatic Identification System) and port scheduling tools.

Future Vision: From Compliance Tool to Global Benchmarking Platform

With increasing international pressure to digitize operational compliance, tools like the IMPA survey app serve as a model for how smart software can drive industry-wide improvements. The app is being positioned not only as a data entry tool but as a strategic platform for long-term safety benchmarking.

This aligns with the IMO’s e-navigation strategy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) and Goal 14 (life below water).

By turning pilot feedback into structured, analyzable data, IMPA is well-positioned to influence broader maritime policies while improving day-to-day operations.

Raising Global Standards with Scalable, Secure Software

This project is more than just a form-filling upgrade—it represents a shift in how pilotage safety is monitored and managed across borders. ActiKnow’s expertise in building custom web and mobile apps has helped IMPA build a future-forward tool that directly enhances the well-being of maritime professionals and the vessels they navigate.

The app continues to gather recognition from industry peers and is already being showcased in international maritime safety forums.

ActiKnow builds secure, scalable digital tools that empower critical infrastructure sectors. Book a free consultation to see how we can help you modernize your operations.

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