Weather-routing system based on METOC navigation risk assessment

Abstract

This paper presents a novel weather-routing system based on a multi-criteria setup. The set of 3 conflicting criteria is: travel time, ship navigation added resistance (caused by wind and waves), and navigation risk/safety. To this aim, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) safety guidelines are exploited for the design of navigation risk criterion as a function of the METeorological and OCeanographic (METOC) and sailing conditions. This risk is directly integrated into the multi-criteria setup, as an innovative alternative to the systems proposed in the open literature. The proposed methodology is tested in a real operational scenario in the Mediterranean Sea. The obtained results show how the proposed system provides alternative routes with minimum risk to the decision-makers, as well as other different alternative routes minimizing the other criteria.