What Port State Control Now Looks At on Vehicle Decks

Port State Control regimes have not formally added new RoRo-specific items to the published checklists yet — but inspectors arriving on vehicle carriers are asking different questions in 2026 than they were two years ago, and the deficiency reports show it.

What is being checked

• Continuous monitoring coverage of enclosed vehicle spaces — not just fixed smoke detectors.
• Operability of CCTV on cargo decks (working cameras, recorded feed, retention).
• Crew familiarity with EV-specific response procedures and isolation gear.
• Records of any past thermal incidents and how they were logged.

Detention trends

Paris MoU and Tokyo MoU detention rates on PCTCs are still small in absolute terms, but the year-on-year change is the story. RoRo tonnage has moved from one of the lower-detention vessel types to one of the more closely watched ones in under three years.

Sources

• Paris MoU on Port State Control — Annual Reports 2023, 2024, 2025.
• Tokyo MoU — Annual Report on Port State Control 2024.
• USCG — Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement (MISLE), RoRo inspection records.
• DNV — PSC Performance Quarterly Updates.
• [VERIFY: Year-on-year detention deltas isolated to RoRo/PCTC segment — Paris/Tokyo MoU annual reports tabulate by deficiency category; per-segment trend requires custom extraction.]