Probability Analysis of Vessel Collisions and Groundings in Southeast Texas Waterways

Abstract

The Sabine–Neches Waterway (SNWW) connects the Texas ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange with the Gulf of Mexico. The SNWW can be divided into three navigation routes, although they share some channels. The first route is the waterway from the Neches River, north of the port of Beaumont, to the port of Port Arthur, and then to the Gulf of Mexico. The second route is a part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW), west of Port Arthur, which extends east of the port of Orange. The third route is from the port of Orange to the Gulf of Mexico. The SNWW plays an important role in its support of the economic growth of southeast Texas. Safe navigation in narrow waterways is one of the most important concerns of maritime authorities and researchers, while collisions and groundings are two of the most common kinds of vessel accidents. In the study reported here, the grounding and collision analysis toolbox was employed to analyze the probabilities of collisions and groundings in multiple segments along the SNWW. The impacts of vessel traffic on the probabilities of collisions and groundings were studied, respectively. The high-risk zones of potential collisions or groundings were identified in the SNWW.

Freight Performance Measurement in FAST Act-Mandated State Freight Plans

“…This can be explained by the priority always put on safety and the ease of obtaining crash data as a result of mandatory crash reporting and the importance of railroad safety. Three plans reported a safety measure for waterways (Texas, North Carolina, and Iowa); Texas measured vessel collisions ( 25 ) and Iowa provided waterway freight-related injuries, collisions, and groundings.…”

Maintaining and researching port safety: a case study of the port of Kaohsiung

“…Generally speaking, although accidents that take place far away from the coastal area and in darkness lead to greater fatality, collision, fire / explosion, contact, grounding and sinking that also lead to fatality [19] can occur in ports. Sometimes, accidents are more common with passenger than freight maritime transport, particularly when vessels approach land masses or travel through narrow waterways [20], through fog [21] or with increased vessel traffic [22]. Also, force majeure events such as typhoons, earthquakes and tsunami can create huge threats to port safety.…”

“…Other mathematical simulation approaches calculate the probability of groundings or collisions on narrow waterways using geographical data and increasing numbers of vessels in a simulation (e.g. [22]). Significantly it is claimed that Fuzzy RuleBased Bayesian Networks can quantify the unquantifiable elements of risk [39].…”

Analysis of waterway transportation in Southeast Texas waterway based on AIS data

“…For example, the Denmark Technical University (DTU) developed a software package called grounding and collision analysis toolbox (GRACAT) (Friis-Hansen and Simonsen, 2002); DTU and Gatehouse made BaSSy/IWRAP tool from the Nordic BaSSy project (Friis-Hansen and Ravn, 2009;Gatehouse, 2014); Zhang et al (2006) developed a simulation model to acquire pilots' maneuvering experience in navigation; and Sormunen et al (2015) simulated the collisions of chemical tankers considering uncertainties. Our previous research employed GRACAT to estimate the vessel collision and grounding probabilities in the SNWW, and identified the sections which suffer from the highest risk of collisions and groundings (Wu et al, 2014). However, the data used in the GRACAT are the aggregate average monthly traffic data in the SNWW, which cannot reflect traffic variability, and detailed maneuvering behavior of vessels in the SNWW.…”