A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM FOR THE MARITIME TRAFFIC ENVIRONMENT

It is desirable when drawing up a maritime traffic environmental project or a project for consolidating port and harbour facilities, that the safety of the maritime environment for shipping-traffic is assessed quantitatively, and that the rationale of a given project and the proposed safety measures are evaluated in an objective manner. In this report, the system flow and procedures to integrally assess the safety of the maritime traffic environment by systematically combining various simulation techniques are discussed first. Subsequently, the quantitative risk evaluation procedure for collisions of ships in waters with a high traffic density, among the assessment procedures above, and an outline of the shipping traffic flow simulation capable of reproducing ships' movements, are described. In evaluating the results of simulations, a method introducing Subjective Judgement values (SJ-values) as indexes manifesting the subjective degree of danger felt by shiphandlers, is shown. The SJ-values were experimentally determined from simulator experiments using parameters representing the relation ship with other ships proceeding in the vicinity. Finally, some of the results of studies conducted for the recent construction of new LNG berths in Tokyo Bay are introduced as an example of practical safety assessment in this field.