Safety management for dangerous cargo in international maritime transport: International maritime dangerous goods shipping standards -IMDG code- and its implementations in Turkey

Considerable changes in the traditional economic patterns can be said to have placed noticeable impacts on the movements of trade commodities. An important part of the goods handled and moved through seaborne trade has comprised certain dangerous goods that have increasingly been demanded and used by a great variety of industrial fields. In the movements of such dangerous goods, containership seem to have been utilized to an obviously high extent. Involving containerization, in shipping, dangerous cargoes seems to have been made the best use of mainly in the movements of little quantities but great numbers of dangerous goods. Such involvement eventually has spotted lights on the likelihood of accidents that could be encountered and suffered at ports. As a consequence, safety in the operations of dangerous goods at ports has become an important issue of debates and regulations. The purpose of this study is to seek the most effective and efficient means of providing, enhancing, and sustaining safety culture at container terminals. To this, first the safety culture variables are to be determined. In determining the variables, a case study has been carried out at a number of container terminals. Through this case study, the views of the personnel as well as the managers, in charge at container terminals of safety culture have been revealed. The case study has also covered questioning the knowledge of the target population about handling dangerous goods. As a second main part of the case study how the port employees perceive the safety culture of the ports has also been included.