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T-ISS Director, Willem Heijboer, sat down with Richard Hagan to talk about the critical importance of safety signage on vessels.

If disaster strikes at sea, quick and coordinated movement of passengers and crew to designated assembly stations can mean the difference between life and death. Dutch marine safety company T-ISS engineers and supplies the systems and products which ensure that everyone aboard can find their way to safety, even in the direst of circumstances.

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T-ISS Director, Willem Heijboer

Four decades of safety at sea Safety signage is a part of many of our daily lives that most of us largely either take for granted or ignore completely. But for Mr Heijboer, who has a background as a safety engineer, the

T-ISS boasts five sites, with three in Holland, one in Denmark and one in Germany, hosting a total staff complement of close to 100. T-ISS, based in Dinxperlo in the Netherlands, supplies a range of certified maritime safety products. Its core business and speciality, however, is safety signage, both high and low loca tion lighting for maritime use. When the emergency alarm sounds on board a vessel, the ability of passengers, and even crew, to find their way to assembly and embarkation stations can very easily mean the difference between disaster and rescue. Pointing the way to safety

In 2017, after working with T-ISS for years through his safety sign company, Mr Heijboer seized an opportunity to purchase T-ISS. It now has worldwide relationships for which it delivers projectbased safety sign solutions, starting with the engineering of a project, through to production, delivery and then installation. Each project is tailor-made for that particular client’s needs and typically includes installation, which can be handled by T-ISS as well.

According to T-ISS Director, Willem Heijboer, escape route signage is the keystone, ensuring that everyone on board a vessel is able to get to safety during such emergencies. “Safety signage is very important in preventing panic. SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) regulations require also public address systems which use spoken words. But in practice, few people understand these instructions – they’re stressed or distracted, and have to find their way to the places of safety. Proper safety signage ensures that in an emergency, every passenger knows where to go and is able to find their assembly station.”

“We discovered that a lot of safety signage wasn’t correctly done,” he said. “In 1985 we completed our first safety sign project and in 1992 we did our first passenger vessel. The business has gone from strength to strength since then. We have since completed projects onboard many types of ships and offshore installations.”

T-ISS specialises in providing safety signs as a system that enc-ompasses all of the components using the correct symbols required by SOLAS and IMO regulations and according to ISO standards. Altogether, the signage system T-ISS manufactures represents a set of visual instructions that anyone can under stand, regard less of their native language, and that anyone can actually see, regardless of whether there has been a power failure on board – as can happen in emergencies.

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issue of signage on vessels quickly took on a new meaning when he set up his maritime safety consultancy in the early 1980s.

Mr Heijboer highlighted a specific but common mistake he sees within the industry, relating to escape signage: “It’s regulated in SOLAS that all escape routes must lead to assembly stations by using the standardised symbol, and then from assembly stations to embarkation stations. In practice, in many cases, you just see a sign with the word “EXIT”. But in my opinion, exiting a vessel is cold and wet,” he said, laughing. “It can work for some smaller spaces, but from larger spaces, corridors and staircases, the escape route to the assembly station must be indicated.

Signs of confusion

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“ISO standards require that safety signage worldwide must be identical and must use symbols, because everybody can read sym bols, regardless of what language you speak,” he continued. “ISO provides all of the relevant symbols, and yet people don’t use them. You see so many vessels with only the word ‘EXIT’ on their signage and when you follow it, you sometimes end up back where you started, as it’s not clearly marked where the assembly station is located.

Around half of its teams are involved in safety sign projects while the others handle other projects such as directional and decorative signage and the supply of safety products and tapes.

Safety signage as a system Regulations require that all passenger vessels must have low location lighting (LLL) on board. The LLL guides people to the assembly station, also in power failure conditions. Where LLL is installed, safety instructions are required, both in cabins and public spaces, displaying the calculated primary and secondary escape routes.

Having been repeatedly frustrated by just how common the problem is, Mr Heijboer embarked on a personal campaign to do something about it. “From my profession as a safety engineer, I saw a lax attitude towards signage standards (as well as so many errors in its applica tion), that I decided to become involved in standardisation activities for this signage. For the last 20 years, I’ve been directly involved with ISO, specifically with all maritime ISO safety sign related stan dards. That includes low location lighting, safety symbols and fire control plans. “As a member of TC145 and TC8, I helped develop many standards. Now I’m a project leader for the development of a stan dard of safety instructions and convenor of a working group for a pipe-marking standard.”

“An escape plan is required to assign both primary and secondary escape routes. On board vessels you often see ‘EXIT’ and ‘Emergency Exit’ but in fact, just the correct symbol is required for emergencies.”

He explained that symbolism, instead of only text-based signage, is vitally important because of its ability to transcend language barriers.

“SOLAS requires that you must be pointed to the assembly station and from there, to the embarkation station. Instead, escape routes often just end up on an open deck when the regulations state that you’re supposed to actually go to or be led to the assembly station.”

According to Mr Heijboer, there is a general lack of awareness throughout the maritime industry regarding the correct use and implementation of safety signage on board vessels. This point even extends, he says, to the very people charged with ensuring the sig nage is “Surveyorscorrect.from classification societies must have knowledge of so many fields that signage often falls short as a visualisation of the escape calculations plan,” he noted. “And while SOLAS and ISO both contain regulations with regards to safety signage, few companies apply them correctly.”

The importance of specialised safety knowledge In closing, given the gravity of the subject, Mr Heijboer was emphatic about why it’s so important that vessel owners should work with spe cialists in this field when procuring safety signage “Where most of our competitors are just selling signs, we are selling a complete system. We’re not working only towards the letter of the requirements and regulations, but we’re also engi neering towards the goal of the regulations.

It goes without saying that escape route signs on the bulkheads, at the ceiling and on the LLL must comply with the safety instructions, and vice Essentially,versa.rather than just selling you an isolated handful of PVC signs (which in any event aren’t legal on ships for safety reasons), T-ISS will design, manufacture and supply a complete safety sign system in line with the ship’s escape calculations plan. This will include both the high and low located signage (photoluminescent or electrical LED) and the safety instructions on board. “Every passenger vessel must have LLL on board and every five years it must be tested,” noted Mr Heijboer. “We’re certified for carrying out those tests and often we combine this with a safety signT-ISSsurvey.”manufactures all of its signage itself, so bespoke signs are no problem. All of its signage is fully UV and saltwater resistant and is applied using the highest-quality adhesives. “Our adhesives are so strong that if you install our sign in the wrong location, you’re going to have a huge problem removing it!” he commented with a chuckle. The T-ISS signage range is also 100% non-PVC. “PVC gives off chloride gas in a fire, so it’s not allowed on vessels,” Mr Heijboer revealed. “A lot of our competitors deliver PVC signs but it’s something that nobody thinks about. Our signs won’t release any toxic gases in case of burning.”

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More recently, T-ISS has introduced LED escape signs that utilise both LEDs and photoluminescent material. “If the power to the ship is lost, the photoluminescence is activated and the sign remains readable and visible for over three hours. After those three hours, it’s still more readable than the minimum require ments in ISO and IMO regulations,” Mr Heijboer proudly remarked.

“Thanks to our particular combination of experience and knowl edge, we have an expert level of knowledge about safety signs, and we’re able to do all of the engineering. It’s a really specialised thing for us. But for me, it goes further than just doing business and earning money. It’s like a mission for worldwide safety that I’m on; a cam paign. I like that.” n