Scheduling Transit Voyages of Vessels of Various Ice Classes Across the Northern Sea Route

Abstract

Main problem for scheduling vessel transit voyages through the Northern Sea Route is the difficulty in predicting distribution of ice boundaries in regions that cannot be overcome by individual ice classes of vessels. Scheduling of voyage is related to speed that vessels can develop and moment of time when vessels will be able to commence and complete passage safely through areas that are main obstacle and are blocking longest transit passage through the Northern Sea Route. This applies to voyages carried out by vessels navigating on their own and with support of icebreakers. Additional problem is lack of consistency of content of maps of ice cover, which can be used for vessels voyage planning through areas where ice cover occurs. Results of this research on influence of uncertain information related with time window of conditions favorable for navigation of vessels of different ice classes on schedule of theirs voyage on example of summer navigation season 2017 are presented in this work.