The major cognitive challenge facing bridge teams navigating Hormuz amid uncertain digital picture

The IMO/Omani evacuation scheme was a serious attempt to bring structure into a very unstable moment in the Strait of Hormuz.

The plan set out temporary corridors, phased vessel movements, coastal-state coordination, AIS on, VHF instructions and individual contact with vessels before departure. It has since been paused as security conditions changed, which shows how precarious the situation still is for seafarers waiting inside the Gulf.

For bridge teams, that presents a challenge extending well beyond traffic density.

Uncertain digital picture

In May, industry bodies including BIMCO, INTERTANKO, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and OCIMF published guidance for vessels operating in the Gulf region. Alongside warnings of GNSS jamming and spoofing, false target injection (fake AIS signals showing ships that aren’t actually there) and vessels deliberately turning AIS off, the guidance includes an unusually direct recommendation: do not rely on AIS alone. Crews are advised to prioritise radar and visual observations and verify information using multiple independent sources.

That advice reflects a broader reality. AIS is an essential situational awareness tool, but it is a data layer, not a direct observation of the physical world. If GPS signals are disrupted, positional information can become unreliable. If vessels stop transmitting, manipulate transmissions or appear as false targets, gaps and inconsistencies emerge in the traffic picture.

A coordinated route or convoy can reduce some risks if the vessels around it are cooperative and the wider traffic picture is reliable. But the route still sits inside an open waterway: other vessels may enter or cross it, some may not transmit AIS, smaller craft can appear outside the planned line, and every vessel still depends on the ship ahead maintaining speed, position and communications.

Every radar contact needs to be cross-checked. Every AIS target becomes a judgement call. Is the vessel really where the display says it is, especially at night? Is that radar echo linked to the correct contact? Has a ship altered course, or is the position data wrong?

Those questions take time to answer, exactly when bridge teams have the least time available.

What we’re asking of bridge teams

There is another dimension that deserves more attention.

Many vessels waiting to leave the Gulf have already spent weeks in a security situation no crew should have to normalize.

Everyone is trying to reduce risk. But uncertainty is still the operating condition: security uncertainty, route uncertainty, traffic uncertainty and digital-positioning uncertainty.

Those risks reinforce one another. As traffic becomes more compressed, crews have less time to validate information. As confidence in digital positioning decreases, more verification is required. As the workload grows, situational awareness becomes harder to maintain.

Bridge teams are being asked to navigate one of the world’s busiest and most sensitive waterways while the route, security picture and digital picture can all change around them. That is an extraordinary cognitive burden to place on any crew.

Supporting judgment under pressure

This is the point Hormuz makes impossible to ignore. If bridge teams are being told not to rely solely on AIS, they need practical ways to verify what they are seeing without adding even more workload.

Radar, visual lookout and local knowledge remain the primary references. AI-powered computer vision and thermal imaging add another independent view of the physical environment, helping crews identify a dark contact at night, confirm whether a radar target matches its AIS position, or detect small craft that may never broadcast their position at all.

The master still navigates the ship. Independent awareness helps bridge teams build confidence in the picture around them when traffic is dense, signals are contested and every decision carries greater consequence.

Hormuz is a defining example but is unlikely to be the last. The priority now is getting seafarers out safely, with as much coordination, clarity and independent verification as possible. As electronic interference and complex traffic situations become more common, the ability to validate the digital picture against the physical world will become an increasingly important part of safe navigation.