A STAMP-Game model for accident analysis in oil and gas industry

Accidents in engineered systems are usually generated by complex socio-technical factors. It is beneficial to investigate the increasing complexity and coupling of these factors from the perspective of system safety. Based on system and control theories, System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) is a widely recognized approach for accident analysis. In this paper, we propose a STAMP-Game model to analyze accidents in oil and gas storage and transportation systems. Stakeholders in accident analysis by STAMP can be regarded as players of a game. Game theory can, thus, be adopted in accident analysis to depict the competition and cooperation between stakeholders. Subsequently, we established a game model to study the strategies of both supervisory and supervised entities. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed game model allows for identifying the effectiveness deficiency of the supervisory entity, and the safety and protection altitudes of the supervised entity. The STAMP-Game model can generate quantitative parameters for supporting the behavior and strategy selections of the supervisory and supervised entities. The quantitative data obtained can be used to guide the safety improvement, to reduce the costs of safety regulation violation and accident risk.