Maritime Policy Using Multilayer CBR

Today’s maritime industry can be described as a supremely crucial and competitive part of the transportation industry, which in turn is a vital function of the world’s international trade. Major players in the maritime arena have to cope with a variety of problems that require effective action in usually strict deadlines. Formation of maritime policy is a complicated and difficult task due to a number of factors such as the global character of shipping, the multiple bodies that produce policy, the tremendous amount of conventions, laws, regulations, directives, circulars, etc, that already exist, plus the number of stakeholders affected by the policy whose influence must be taken into account by any wise policy maker. These observations served as a motivation to use CBR (Case Based Reasoning) for the development of a hybrid system in policy making. CBR tools are used in a variety of domains such as defense, economy, education, medicine, etc, but little has been done for the maritime industry and especially in policy making. Since policies have a top – down influence and differ significantly in respect of the implementation level, CBR was selectively used in layers in order to have a better vertical penetration in the problem’s structure.