Effectively managing safety in inland water transport is complex due to continuous interactions between human behaviour, mechanical systems, procedural guidelines, and environmental risk. Although various frameworks have been introduced, they remain fragmented and poorly aligned with technological advances and changing operational contexts, highlighting the need for integrated risk management strategies. This study presents a systematic literature review of 120 peer-reviewed Scopus-indexed articles to analyse how safety models in inland water transport have evolved. Using bibliometric tools such as co-occurrence mapping and trend visualisation in VOSviewer, we identified key intellectual themes, modelling trajectories, and research networks. Given its archipelagic nature and reliance on multimodal connections, the Indonesia transport system offers a critical yet under-researched context. Despite this, inland water operations in Indonesia lack comprehensive organizational safety frameworks and formal standards. The study calls for homegrown models tailored to fragmented infrastructure, informal business systems, and climate-induced vulnerabilities. A novelty of this review lies in the integration of bibliometric and thematic synthesis within a single framework, combined with the contextual application of findings to Indonesia’s inland water transport system—an under-represented but critical domain in global safety research. We observe a shift from linear models to systemic and probabilistic approaches, particularly Bayesian Network (BN) and STAMP, which integrate technical, social, and ecological aspects, while heuristic methods such as fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms offer adaptive solutions under data-scarce conditions. This review not only synthesizes global safety models in inland water transport but also provides a novel comparative perspective by linking international developments with Indonesia’s specific challenges and policy implications. While China leads this field, significant gaps persist in capturing real-time environmental risk data and addressing human behaviour and organizational safety challenges. The study urges Indonesia to adopt dynamic risk management tools for resilient operations. Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier B.V.