Operational analysis of container ships by using maritime big data

Abstract

The shipping company or the operator determines the mode of operation of a ship. In the case of container ships, there may be various operating patterns employed to arrive at the destina-tion within the stipulated time. In addition, depending on the influence of the ocean’s environmental conditions, the speed and the route can be changed. As the ship’s fuel oil consumption is closely related to its operational pattern, it is possible to identify the most economical operations by ana-lyzing the operational patterns of the ships. The operational records of each shipping company are not usually disclosed, so it is necessary to estimate the operational characteristics from publicly available data such as the automatic identification system (AIS) data and ocean environment data. In this study, we developed a visualization program to analyze the AIS data and ocean environmental conditions together and propose two categories of applications for the operational analysis of container ships using maritime big data. The first category applications are the past operation analysis by tracking previous trajectories, and the second category applications are the speed pattern analysis by shipping companies and shipyards under harsh environmental conditions. Thus, the operational characteristics of container ships were evaluated using maritime big data.