Collision Risk Assessment Support System for MASS RO and VTSO Support in Multi-Ship Environment of Vessel Traffic Service Area

The discussions by the International Maritime Organization for the introduction of a maritime autonomous surface ship (MASS) began in earnest. At the 27th ENAV meeting, the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities proposed the “sharing of a common operating picture for situational awareness of the waterway within vessel traffic service (VTS) environment” when developing a system to support MASS operation. Marine accidents caused by collisions on waterways still account for a high percentage of ship accidents that occur at sea, and many studies have investigated the risk of collision between ships. Collision risk assessment was primarily conducted in ship domain-based safety areas. This study evaluates the collision risk using the ship domain derived by the VTS operator (VTSO) and proposes a real-time collision risk assessment support system to improve the situational awareness of VTSOs and MASS remote operators (MASS ROs) regarding near-collision situations occurring in local waters. To evaluate the validity of the proposed system, a risk analysis was performed on near-collision scenarios at Busan Port. The results show that the distance to the closest point of approach (CPA), time to the CPA, and inter-ship distance converged within 0.5 nautical miles, 10 min, and 3 nautical miles, respectively.