Three generations of IMO signage are in service at once, and a refit can quietly move a ship from one to another. The signs and the plan in the box by the gangway are also the only safety equipment on board designed to be read by someone who has never seen the vessel.
Equipment for a Stranger
Almost everything in the safety inventory is for the crew, who know the ship. Two things are not. Escape route signs serve anyone who has to leave a space they do not know, and the duplicate fire control plan serves shore firefighters who have never been aboard and will arrive at the worst possible moment.
That is why SOLAS treats the plan twice over. Regulation II-2/15.2.4 requires fire control plans to be permanently exhibited for the guidance of the ship’s officers, and requires a duplicate set, or a booklet containing those plans, to be permanently stored in a prominently marked weathertight enclosure outside the deckhouse, for the assistance of shore-based firefighting personnel.
In practice that enclosure is the single most neglected item in the fire protection inventory. It sits outside, in weather, often unopened between surveys, and its contents age against a ship that keeps changing. A plan inside it that no longer matches the vessel is worse than no plan, because the people reading it will act on it.
Everything else in the safety inventory is checked by people who would notice if it were wrong. The shore firefighters’ copy is checked by people who have no way to know.
Three Generations of Symbols, All Still Afloat
The symbols on those plans and signs have been revised twice, and the transitions were written as application dates rather than as fleet-wide changes. The result is that different ships in the same anchorage legitimately carry different sign sets.
Resolution A.654(16). The older graphical symbols. Ships constructed before 1 January 2004 may continue to carry fire control plans using them.
Resolution A.952(23), adopted 5 December 2003. Graphical symbols for shipboard fire control plans, based on ISO 17631:2002, with Governments urged to encourage their use for the plans required by regulation II-2/15.2.4 on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2004. Its annex is organised in three groups: structural fire protection, fire protection appliances, and means of escape and escape-related devices.
Resolution A.1116(30), adopted 5 December 2017. Escape route signs and equipment location markings, based on ISO 24409-2:2014, covering means of escape, emergency equipment, life-saving, fire-fighting, prohibition, warning and mandatory action signs, plus shipboard fire control plan signs whose symbols follow ISO 17631.
The date that matters: A.1116(30) should take effect on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2019, and on ships that undergo repairs, alterations, modifications or outfitting within the scope of SOLAS chapters II-2 or III on or after that date.
Pending the revision, MSC.1/Circ.1553 had invited Governments to promote ISO 24409-2:2014 for voluntary use, which is why some pre-2019 ships already carry the newer symbols.
The refit trigger is the clause that catches owners. An older vessel is not frozen in its original sign set: repairs, alterations, modifications or outfitting falling within the scope of chapter II-2 or chapter III on or after 1 January 2019 bring the newer markings into play. A fire protection or life-saving upgrade therefore has a signage consequence, and it is the kind of consequence that gets priced after the yard period rather than before it.
The two resolutions are also meant to work together rather than in sequence. A.1116(30) states that its markings should be used, as appropriate, in combination with A.952(23) to prepare the fire control plans required by regulation II-2/15.2.4. So the plan draws on both, which is a reason to treat the plan as a document to be reissued rather than annotated.
What the Resolutions Do Not Settle
Worth being precise here, because the gap is routinely filled with assumption.
A.1116(30) adopts the signs and markings themselves. It does not specify where signs must be placed, and it states no photoluminescent or illumination requirement. Those questions are answered by the SOLAS regulations the resolution’s preamble cites, which between them cover the marking of escape routes, operating instructions, survival craft muster and embarkation arrangements and the marking of stowage locations, and by the approval regime for the products.
The annex itself carries a further caution: its printed colours may not reproduce accurately and it is not intended for colour matching, with ISO 7010 and ISO 17631 named as the definitive sources for the symbols. An owner specifying a signage package from a photocopied annex is working from a document that says it should not be used that way.
The resolution says which sign. Where it goes, how it is lit and what it is made of are answered somewhere else, and that split is where signage packages are bought wrongly.
The Inspection Failures This Produces
None of this is complicated, which is exactly why the failures are so consistent. They are failures of upkeep rather than of understanding.
The third item deserves attention because it is created by doing the right thing badly. A damaged sign is replaced, correctly, with one to the current set, and the corridor now carries two generations of symbol. The fix is to decide at fleet level which set a vessel is on and buy consistently to it, rather than letting the chandler’s current catalogue decide one sign at a time.
The last item is the one that recurs most on vessels in yard or under modification. Signage is only useful if it can be seen from where a person will be standing, and temporary work routinely puts something in the way and leaves it there.
Treating It as a Managed Document Set
The practical approach is to stop treating signage and plans as fittings and start treating them as a controlled document set with a revision history.
That means establishing which resolution set the vessel is on and recording it. It means a rule that any work within the scope of chapters II-2 or III triggers a review of both the plan and the markings, before the vessel leaves the yard rather than at the next survey. It means the duplicate enclosure being opened and its contents checked as a scheduled item, with the revision inside matched against the exhibited copy. And it means a walk-through that checks signs can actually be seen, which no document review will ever catch.
The reason to bother is narrow and serious. Everything else in the inventory is there for a crew who know the ship. These items exist for the moment when the people acting on them do not, and they are the only equipment on board whose entire function is to be legible to a stranger. Our life-saving solutions work covers the markings, plans and location signage alongside the appliances themselves, because an appliance nobody can find has not been provided.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does a ship have to keep its fire control plans?
SOLAS regulation II-2/15.2.4 requires fire control plans to be permanently exhibited for the guidance of the ship’s officers, and a duplicate set or a booklet containing those plans to be permanently stored in a prominently marked weathertight enclosure outside the deckhouse for the assistance of shore-based firefighting personnel. The outside copy is the one most often found out of date or damaged.
Which escape route signs apply to my ship?
Resolution A.1116(30), adopted 5 December 2017, should take effect on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2019, and on ships undergoing repairs, alterations, modifications or outfitting within the scope of SOLAS chapters II-2 or III on or after that date. It is based on ISO 24409-2:2014, and its fire control plan symbols follow ISO 17631. Earlier ships may be on A.952(23) symbols, or on A.654(16) if constructed before 1 January 2004.
Does a refit change a ship’s signage obligations?
It can. A.1116(30) applies not only to newly constructed ships but to ships that undergo repairs, alterations, modifications or outfitting within the scope of chapter II-2 or chapter III on or after 1 January 2019. A fire protection or life-saving upgrade therefore carries a signage and fire control plan consequence, which is better priced into the yard period than discovered after it.
Do the resolutions say where signs go and whether they must be lit?
No. A.1116(30) adopts the signs and markings; it does not specify placement and states no photoluminescent or illumination requirement. Those come from the SOLAS regulations its preamble cites, covering the marking of escape routes, operating instructions, survival craft muster and embarkation, and the marking of stowage locations, and from the product approval regime. The annex also warns that its printed colours are not intended for colour matching and names ISO 7010 and ISO 17631 as definitive.
Sources: SOLAS chapter II-2 regulation 15.2.4, requiring fire control plans to be permanently exhibited for the guidance of the ship’s officers and a duplicate set or a booklet containing such plans to be permanently stored in a prominently marked weathertight enclosure outside the deckhouse for the assistance of shore-based firefighting personnel · IMO resolution A.952(23), Graphical symbols for shipboard fire control plans, adopted 5 December 2003, whose annex covers structural fire protection, fire protection appliances and means of escape and escape-related devices, with symbols based on ISO 17631:2002, urging Governments to encourage their use for the plans required by regulation II-2/15.2.4 on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2004, permitting ships constructed before that date to continue carrying plans using the symbols in resolution A.654(16), and inviting Governments to draw ISO 17631:2002 to the attention of relevant parties · IMO resolution A.1116(30), Escape route signs and equipment location markings, adopted 5 December 2017 at the thirtieth session of the Assembly, covering means of escape, emergency equipment, life-saving, fire-fighting, prohibition, warning and mandatory action signs together with shipboard fire control plan signs whose symbols follow ISO 17631, with the annex based on ISO 24409-2:2014, stating that the signs and markings should take effect on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2019 and on ships undergoing repairs, alterations, modifications and outfitting within the scope of SOLAS chapters II-2 and or III on or after that date, that they should be used as appropriate in combination with resolution A.952(23) for the preparation of the fire control plans required by regulation II-2/15.2.4, and that the annex colours may not reproduce accurately and are not intended for colour matching with ISO 7010 and ISO 17631 named as definitive; its preamble cites regulations II-2/15.2.4, II-2/13.3.2.5.1 on the marking of escape routes, II-2/13.7, III/9 on operating instructions, III/11 on survival craft muster and embarkation arrangements and III/20.10 on the marking of stowage locations · IMO MSC.1/Circ.1553, which invited Governments to promote ISO 24409-2:2014 for voluntary use pending adoption of the revised resolution
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