From the IMO Data Collection System to FuelEU Maritime, regulation has pulled compliance reporting onto the bridge itself. The result is more work absorbed by the same number of people, and a growing set of decisions that have to be made in real time.
This article explains why compliance and reporting have moved onto the bridge itself, and how that is reshaping daily decision-making at sea.
Evolving maritime regulations has added to the complexity that crews face in a bridge environment. Environmental and reporting requirements sit much closer to daily operations than they used to.
Systems on the bridge and, more generally, on a vessel do not just support navigation but also gather, process, and report data for compliance.
On a global scale, the IMO Data Collection System (DCS) has required ships of 5,000 GT and above to record fuel consumption and operational data since 2019, with this data feeding into the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) framework from 2023.
In Europe, the extension of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to maritime transport from 2024, alongside the introduction of FuelEU Maritime from 2025, has further integrated emissions monitoring and reporting into daily operations.
These developments have begun to bring operational decision-making, data collection, and regulatory reporting into a single set of workflows. The complexity for modern seafarers is not just the number of regulations, but how they relate to one another.
The European Commission’s FuelEU Maritime guidance highlights that the regulation is ‘highly intertwined’ with EU MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification) and the EU Emissions Trading System (EUETS), with overlapping requirements that must be managed together.
At the IMO’s Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping (HTW) Sub-Committee in 2026, the Secretary-General and member states spoke regarding technological change and seafarer wellbeing, launching new work on fatigue and hours of rest.
The discussions highlighted growing concerns about seafarer fatigue and were important because they recognised that, as vessels become more complex and regulations deepen, human factors such as fatigue affect safety, performance, and the adoption of new technologies.
The problem is not just that the amount of regulation has increased, but that the additional work has often been absorbed by the same number of people. As Pradeep Chawla explained, “with every new regulation we add some tasks for the seafarers, but we do not change the manning levels onboard.”
Crews now operate in a new digital environment where systems are expected to support safe navigation and compliance. The same data is often required to serve different purposes across evolving regulatory structures with varying requirements. As a result, compliance is no longer separate from operations as it directly influences daily decision-making on the bridge.
This move has increased the amount of information crews are required to manage and raised the stakes for what can go wrong, which helps explain why fatigue and workload are receiving more attention at a regulatory level.
As James Shaw, Master at Stena Line, outlined, new requirements are often layered onto existing workflows rather than replacing them. “There’s a lot of policies and procedures, it becomes a bit overwhelming,” he said, showing how additional demands increase workload without simplifying processes.
This indicates a widespread operational challenge across maritime, where new requirements are often layered onto existing systems rather than replacing them.
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