By Michael Scott, Founder & Head of Product & Brand, SEEN Safety
Walk through any port or marine terminal today, and one thing is immediately obvious: everyone is wearing high-visibility vests with reflective tape — a bright signal that safety matters here.
And that’s a good thing. Ports remain some of the most hazardous places to work. In the United States, fatal injury rates in port operations are about five times higher than the national average. In Australia, stevedoring’s serious injury rate is three times the national average (www.cdc.gov).
There’s no doubt that the industry has made enormous strides in improving safety, with better training, tighter processes, and a genuine culture of care. Many ports today are safer than they’ve ever been.
Yet despite this progress — and the sea of hi-vis clothing — heavy mobile equipment like container handlers, reach stackers, and forklifts still collide with pedestrians far too often.
The limits of passive safety
Most ports already excel at traditional safety measures:
- Painted pedestrian walkways
- Safety signage
- High-vis PPE
- Backup beepers and blue lights
- Reversing cameras
- Strict safety rules and training
But all these are passive controls. They’re vital — but share a fundamental weakness: They rely on people noticing — and acting accordingly.
Drivers must look in the right direction. Pedestrians must stay in the lines. People must always follow the rules.
But humans are fallible. We get distracted. We unconsciously assume, “No one was there a second ago, so no one’s there now.” We get fatigued under relentless operational pressure. In ports, the stakes for these lapses are enormous.
As Nicole Rosie, CEO of WorkSafe New Zealand, once said: “The reality is too many workplaces are using passive controls that, in effect, are ineffective… because when the human makes a mistake… the high-vis vest doesn’t stop the vehicle from running over them.”
High-vis: The minimum, but not enough
High-visibility clothing is essential. It’s the bare minimum that should be non-negotiable in any port operation. But let’s not kid ourselves that high-vis alone saves lives.
As SafeWork NSW, Australia notes: “PPE can be useful, but it is also one of the least effective ways of controlling safety problems. It works best when used with other control measures.”
Human factors experts know drivers sometimes fail to see pedestrians they’re not expecting to see — a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. It’s not malicious neglect; it’s human nature. And in busy, high-pressure operations, there’s every chance a driver might not be looking in the right place at the critical moment. That’s why safety regulators keep repeating: PPE is your last line of defence, not your first. So the question becomes:
How do we protect pedestrians when people inevitably make mistakes?
How do we create systems that compensate for human limitations?
The answer is active controls. As the UK HSE rightly notes: “The use of an automatic detection system that provides the driver with a distinctive, attention-gaining warning… would materially contribute to mitigating the risk of accidents with pedestrians occurring.”
Why ports need active controls
Unlike passive measures, active controls don’t wait for someone to see a vest or read a sign. They continuously monitor the environment and intervene when danger arises.
In ports, where enormous machines operate in areas where — perhaps not always, but sometimes — people are present, active controls are no longer optional. They’re a necessity. Consider:
- Proximity sensors detecting people in equipment blind spots and triggering alarms.
- Automatic brakes stopping machines if a pedestrian enters a danger zone.
- Data capture recording near misses, revealing hidden hazards before disaster strikes.
But here’s where things get tricky — not all active systems are equal.
The technology dilemma: Tags, cameras, or… something smarter?
If you’ve researched pedestrian detection lately, you’ve probably seen two main approaches:
- Electronic Tags — Systems requiring pedestrians to wear active transponders (RFID, UWB, etc.).
- AI Cameras — Systems using computer vision to detect human shapes.
Both have strengths — but also serious limitations, especially in ports.
Tag systems: A practical challenge
Tag systems sound great in theory. But real-world environments expose their weaknesses:
- People forget to wear or recharge their tag.
- Visitors and contractors may arrive without tags.
- Multi-path reflections off containers confuse RF signals, causing false alarms or missed detections.
Managing a tag inventory in a dynamic, multi-user environment like a port quickly becomes a logistical nightmare. As one safety manager told me: “If the system depends on every person wearing a tag, I can guarantee it’s going to fail sooner or later.”
AI cameras: Impressive — but imperfect
AI cameras promise tag-free detection. But they struggle in ports:
- Rain, dust, glare, vibration, and light/dark contrast degrade image quality.
- People crouching, carrying loads, or standing near walls confuse AI models.
- Poor lighting at night reduces detection accuracy dramatically.
Relying solely on cameras to detect pedestrians in real time around reversing forklifts or straddle carriers is risky business.
The true cost of a collision
Some might shrug and say, “We’ve managed fine so far.” But have we? The financial reality is stark:
- The average direct cost of a serious injury in the US is ~$47,000.
- In the UK, fatal incidents can cost £1.3 million or more in legal and compensation costs, and directors have even been imprisoned in some cases.
- Indirect costs — downtime, investigations, vessel delays — can be up to 10 times higher.
And then there’s the human cost. A single fatality devastates families, co-workers, and entire communities. No spreadsheet can capture that loss.
A smarter way: Active optical detection
At SEEN Safety, we believe there’s a better way. We asked: What if we could transform high-vis PPE from a passive measure into part of an active detection system? Instead of relying on people to see a vest in their blind spot, why not equip machinery to “see” the retroreflective tape on that vest — reliably, day or night, rain or shine?
That’s the principle behind SEEN’s IRIS 860 sensor:
- It uses infrared LIDAR technology to detect retroreflective tape up to eight metres away — even in total darkness, high glare, rain, or dusty conditions.
- It’s 100 percent optical, so steel containers and RF reflections don’t confuse it.
- There’s no need for tags, wearables, or complex integrations.
It’s a simple, elegant way to turn your existing PPE into an active safety system.
In 2019, Joe Purcell, Marine Operations Manager at Alaska Marine Lines (part of the Lynden group), was looking for a reliable, cost-effective solution that was easy to install and roll out. He told us: “The SEEN sensors have been extremely effective and are so simple to install. Positive feedback from everyone. I couldn’t be happier with their performance.”
Today, SEEN sensors are installed in over 50 forklifts on Lynden barges and docks in Alaska, Seattle and beyond — operating in some of the most challenging conditions on earth.
Spencer Gasque, HSE Manager at SSA Marine in Georgia, USA, adds: “SEEN Safety’s pedestrian detection system was simple to install and gave us the ability to coach pedestrians and operators about their positioning in relation to one another with visual evidence to drive the point home.”
From data to decisions
Detection alone isn’t enough. Prevention requires learning. Many ports believe their traffic plans are working — until they install a detection system and discover near misses happening every day. This near-miss data is gold because it reveals:
- Where people and machines regularly come too close.
- How often it happens.
- Who’s involved — and under what conditions.
This insight helps safety managers redesign traffic flows, retrain operators, and eliminate hidden risks before someone gets hurt. At SEEN, we pair our sensor with our IRIS-i camera and an AI image classifier, to capture and label near-miss events — because a single photo often teaches more than a hundred toolbox talks.
Challenge your thinking
Ports have come a long way in safety but if we keep relying only on passive controls, we’ll keep seeing the same tragic headlines. The Challenger message is this:
- High-vis vests are essential — but not enough.
- Passive controls are important — but prone to human error.
- For ports serious about the road to zero harm, active technology is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have.
The real question for every port is: Are you willing to accept that human mistakes will continue to cause tragic accidents—or will you invest in systems designed to prevent those inevitable mistakes from becoming irreversible harm?
It’s time to turn your humble high-vis safety vests into something far more powerful.
Michael Scott is the Founder and Head of Product at SEEN afety, a New Zealand–based industrial safety technology company with a global footprint, including teams on the ground in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and beyond.
About SEEN Safety
SEEN Safety’s patented IRIS technology uses infrared lasers to detect retroreflective tape on standard PPE, transforming passive high-vis clothing into part of an active pedestrian detection system. Unlike RF tag systems, SEEN’s technology is unaffected by steel containers or signal reflections, and unlike cameras, it performs reliably in darkness, dust, vibration, and poor weather. SEEN helps ports and industrial operators worldwide reduce collisions, prevent near misses, and make data-driven safety improvements—all without requiring workers to wear extra tags or devices.
