Safer Tomorrow thought leadership series: Robin Mortimer

As part of the PSS Safer Tomorrow campaign, PSS is publishing a series of articles examining what industry leaders believe a safer tomorrow will look like, and crucially, how we will get there. In this first article, Port of London Authority (PLA) CEO, and former chair of Maritime UK, Robin Mortimer, tells PSS CEO Debbie Cavaldoro what he thinks a safe port looks like.

All PSS members and the wider maritime sector are invited to take part in this conversation. Join us at the PSS members’ conference on 08 July, send in your thoughts to info@portskillsandsafety.co.uk, or encourage young port workers to submit an entry to our Safer Tomorrow competition, giving our future leaders the change to share their views and compare them with those of today’s industry leaders.

“A safe port is one in which every single person at every single level is always conscious of safety and always willing to be open about any issue that concerns them, or any mistake that has been made,” Robin replies without any hesitation when asked what a safe port looks like.

“However ports change in the future, there are always going to be quite a lot of physical jobs, and human beings interacting with physical work is never going to be without hazard.”

Robin says that in the last year at PLA, there were a number of Lost Time Incidents (LTIs) where no ‘mistake’ was made. He explains that they were the result of things like manual handling issues, an underlying health problem or simply because ports have an aging workforce who are perhaps not able to be quite a physical and robust as they used to be.

“We can put in measures to help and support our employees,” he says. “But unless you can eliminate all physical activity, there’s always going to be some risk.

“I also think as a sector we have to understand more about the difference between ‘mistakes’ and ‘errors of judgement’. There is a certain inevitability about human error and we need multiple safeguards so ensure a human error does not become a significant incident. If this is supported by real openness when errors do occur, you can put systems in place to learn from them.”

Building a safety culture

Robin believes there is still a long way to go on the reporting culture:

“If somebody has done something where they know they made the wrong judgement call, owning up to it is hard,” he adds.

“If your workmate has done something it takes courage to say, ‘Look, actually, that was wrong, let’s report it’. I think we can learn from other sectors such as nuclear – and they are by no means perfect – but they do have a really strong emphasis on open reporting and I think ports have a way to go with that.”

Robin does acknowledge that changing culture takes a long time. He describes the maritime sector as having a history of being a ‘man’s world’ where risks are taken as part of ‘being a man’ and demonstrating a ‘macho’ attitude. He says that culture is definitely changing and the growing number of women in the sector, in particular, has had a really positive effect on safety culture and will continue to do so.

“At PLA we had a large intake of younger pilots in the last six or seven years and their attitudes are totally different,” he adds. “They seem much more willing to initiate a conversation about safety in a way that some of the longer serving people won’t.“

Technology impacts

When asked about the effect that technology might play in the future of port safety, Robin says he thinks too many organisations are ‘fixated on AI’ rather than on the need for really good quality mass data.

“I don’t think, as a sector, we can be confident that we’re collecting comparable data across all the ports and sharing it openly,” he says. “We need to create a really rich set of very reliable data that we’re totally confident about and then we can talk about what technology can do with that data.

“At PLA, we have thousands of pilot movements a year and whilst there is much talk about the future of autonomous shipping, I believe that is still at least a generation away. Therefore, we need to continue planning for a world in which there are people physically getting on board ships at sea.

“Let’s focus on using technology and data to make that as safe as possible – where’s the innovation around new pilot ladder design for example – rather than fixating on a very theoretical long-term option where you might have people sitting in our offices in Gravesend steering the ship into port with a joystick.”

Robin says that the future of port safety ultimately comes back to the culture:

“We have to create a culture where people in frontline jobs can have ideas and be heard. I’d like to think PLA is pretty good at that. If someone in our marine services site knows of a different way of doing something or a new safer piece of machinery, management will hear those ideas. You have to take a non-hierarchical view, which ultimately is just good management.

“We also have a lot of younger people joining the business, who are much more comfortable with a high level of tech and if you give them time and space they can come up with some amazing things.”

Robin goes on to describe being told about a staff member at PLA who was a Geographic Information System (GIS) enthusiast in his spare time. He was invited in for a meeting and PLA ultimately created a new work steam for him to head-up looking at improving the GIS capability at PLA.

“We’re now employing three people to use the technology,” he says. “It’s saved us huge amounts of time and money, as well as improved our customer service. As a CEO, you can’t know these facts about everybody so you need a great team around you, who can bring them to your attention.”

Robin also believes that ports can derive a great deal of benefit in the future from wearable tech. For example, headphones that can provide instant translation would be invaluable for a pilot boarding a vessel.

Fatigue management is also a concern, and Robin thinks that smart watches can already provide people with better tools to understand and manage their own fatigue.

“We already have a good culture of pilots being able to call in and say they didn’t get enough sleep at home and are therefore not able to perform some of their very mentally and physically demands roles,” he adds. “But with smart watches you can clearly see whether you are getting quality rest, which you might not otherwise realise.”

Future skills

When asked whether safer ports require a new set of skills Robin once again returns to the subject of culture.

“If culture is the way to achieve safer ports, then the future skills needs are ones that support that,” he says.

“Those generic skills like communication and management are so important. But if we also need to become better skilled around data collection, I think [as a sector] we’re under-invested in getting quality data and that makes it hard to do that really robust analysis which will move us forward into a safer tomorrow.

Conclusion

Many thanks to Robin Mortimer for taking part in this article. His reflections offer a compelling vision for a safer tomorrow — one rooted not just in procedures or technologies, but in culture, trust, and open dialogue. As the port sector evolves, it’s clear that our approach to safety must evolve with it. That means investing in high-quality data, embracing innovation that serves frontline workers, and fostering an environment where every voice is heard, regardless of role or seniority.

At the heart of this vision is the understanding that safety is not a destination but a continuous journey. By learning from each other, challenging outdated attitudes, and empowering the next generation, we can create ports that are not only safer but more inclusive, resilient, and forward-looking.

This conversation is just beginning. Through the Safer Tomorrow campaign, Port Skills and Safety invites you to share your ideas, experiences, and aspirations for the future of port safety. Together, we can shape a culture where safety is everyone’s responsibility—and everyone’s right.