Optimization on arrangement of precaution areas serving for ships’ routeing in the Taiwan strait based on massive AIS data

Abstract

The Taiwan Strait is the gateway used by ships of almost every kind on passage to and from nearly all the important ports in Northeast Asia. To minimize the possibility of collisions between crossing and through traffic, Precaution Areas (PAs) were laid out to remind mariners where the crossing and encountering situations may occur in the strait. Recent advances in telemetry technology help to collect ships movement data more efficiently and accurately. These advances would be useful for delineating Principal Fairways (PFs) in the crowded strait-corridor. Based on ship trajectory observations of transit-passage and cross-strait transits, cumulative activity patterns are characterized in the form of probability density. Bringing the layer of popular direct cross-strait lanes to the iso-surface of PFs, all conflict areas were extracted as PAs of the Ships Routing System Plan in Taiwan Strait. For direct cross-strait transportations, by linking the centers of PAs in the strait with the official pass points outside the western Taiwan harbors, this paper recommends the applicable direct cross-strait routes to reduce the risk of conflicts in the strait.