This project was commissioned to revise the heat stress risk assessment software, HotStuff, and provide a methodology to properly incorporate the risk of heat stress while a ship is at port.

The existing methodology for estimating the heat stress risk for livestock destined for Middle Eastern ports has been used successfully for a number of years. However, while it provided an adequate approach to mitigating heat stress risk while sailing, the approach does not explicitly address heat stress risk during discharge for ships with open decks.

The study extended the existing methodology to address this issue. Risk estimates for both the sailing and discharge components of export voyages were incorporated in the revised methodology of HotStuff as well as the functionality for the separate treatment of each Middle Eastern port and for voyages discharging at multiple ports.

As part of this study, the HotStuff software was also moved to a more up-to-date development environment and updated to incorporate the new methodology, improve a range of features and fix a number of problems with the previous version.