Session: 02-13-01 Risk Analysis and Safety Management 1

Paper Number: 133105

133105 - Level of Service Evaluation Method for Waterways Based on Vessel Displacement 

The level of service (LOS) of a waterway is a crucial indicator to measure the planning effectiveness and operational quality of waterway facilities. Most of the previous studies on waterway LOS used the method of converting ships of different scales in the waterway into "standard ships", and determined waterway LOS by counting the density of "standard ships". However, this kind of method cannot accurately describe the operational status of the traffic flow of the ships.

In order to describe the traffic condition of waterways more scientifically, this paper explores the method of determining waterway LOS based on vessel displacement, intending to formulate a water transport version of the evaluation criteria of waterway LOS. Firstly, due to the large size of ships and the heterogeneity of traffic flow, we propose to divide waterway LOS into five levels, which are excellent, good, medium, pass, and poor. Then, an evaluation system using vessel displacement as an indicator is established to characterize the operational status of waterway traffic in terms of differences in vessel displacement. Additionally, Python is used to analyze and process the historical ship Automatic Identification System (AIS) data of waterway traffic and extract three parameters of ship traffic: flow rate, displacement, and speed. Based on the theory and methods of traffic flow, proposing the method of drawing the basic map of water traffic flow by replacing the density with the vessel's displacement, and the optimal vessel displacement is obtained from the diagram. Finally, based on the optimal vessel displacement, the service level is classified and evaluated.

Our proposed method is applied to analyze the waterway LOS of the Yangtze River Estuary area. The results show that this method can more accurately describe the operational status of ship traffic and determine the service level of the waterway. This study can reflect the operational quality of waterway infrastructure, expand the research on LOS in waterway transportation, and provide a decision-making basis and key parameters for marine traffic authorities.

Presenting Author: Menglin Wang Shanghai Maritime University

Presenting Author Biography: I am a second-year student from the School of Merchant Marine, Shanghai Maritime University, majoring in traffic information engineering and control, with research interests in basic charts of traffic flow in ports and waterways as well as level of service in waterways.

Authors:

Yihua Liu Shanghai Maritime University
Menglin Wang Shanghai Maritime University
Mengting Li Shanghai Maritime University