A stochastic model of vessel casualties resulting from oil tanker traffic through narrow waterways

Abstract

In this paper, we present our preliminary results of a stochastic model to investigate vessel casualties resulting from tanker traffic through a waterway. A state-space model of the waterway is developed by dividing it into a number of grids. The model incorporates the effects of physical forcing mechanisms, i.e., currents and waves, winds, visibility, geometry of the waterway and the routes of individual vessels in the drift probabilities of the vessels. Then these probabilities are used as state-transition probabilities of a Markov chain. The transient analysis of the resulting time-varying Markov chain yields risk charts that show the casualty probabilities across the geometry of the waterway at a given time. Furthermore the steady-state analysis allows us to analyze the relationship between the vessel traffic intensity and a global measure of casualty risk.