From the Titanic era to the AI era: a rational framework for life-cycle damage stability and flooding risk management of passenger ships

Maritime accidents involving passenger ships have long influenced industry approaches to ship design, emphasizing resilience and fail-safe performance following flooding events. Consequently, regulatory frameworks have focused predominantly on damage containment and emergency response rather than on accident prevention. This emphasis is reinforced by largely rules-based regulations that apply mainly to newbuildings and reflect legacy assumptions that have not kept pace with modern technological advances. As a result, many existing ships operate under comparatively lower safety standards, with limited means to sustain or enhance safety during operation. Meanwhile, progress in accident prevention has been modest, failing to capitalize on contemporary developments that could offer cost-effective and transformative safety improvements. There is a clear need for a paradigm shift from post-accident protection toward proactive accident prevention, with the ultimate objective of eliminating loss of life at sea. This paper proposes such a shift and outlines the essential elements required to design and operate fundamentally safer ships.