ABSTRACT
A PIANC Working Group was established to study the problem of collision with bridges, or in a wider perspective, collision amongst ships due to the presence of a bridge. This chapter reports briefly on the activities of this Working Group. It presents some attempts to assign factors that might influence the probability of collision. In 1983 an important event with regard to rational design and analysis of ship collision with bridges took place: the IABSE International Colloquium on ship collision with bridges in Copenhagen. Already in 1983 a call was made to establish an international database with ship bridge collision accidents. The data of ship collisions that have occurred in practice are extremely useful, if not necessary, in establishing models of ship behavior with regard to bridges. The causes of ship collision can roughly be divided into three main groups: human error, technical failure and extreme external circumstances.
