An Internationalized Approach to European Perspectives for the Safety and Security in Port Industry

The increased internationalized competition as well as the evolvement of the transport industry as a whole, has a significant effect on quality and safety management for the ports around the world and more specifically in Europe. Quality is a complex and subjective concept, incorporating at any given time the expressed and implied needs of all those involved. Over the last two decades, new security and safety risks have been introduced by the European Union for the ports in Europe. These include new safety and security regulations for environmental as well as for other important aspects of the port operations. This paper explores ideas involved in quality and safety EU policies through a qualitative review of the literature. The qualitative analysis aims at a. to investigate contemporary issues for quality and safety/security systems integration within European port industry and b. to provide evidence for the interrelation and integration of quality and safety/security standards. Furthermore, benefits and pitfalls of the different quality and safety approaches are discussed while further study directions are provided.