Increased availability and reduced climate impact through improved maritime analyses

Closed

Better routes for ships shall result in less fuel consumption and thus maritime transport with less environmental impact. The Maria project aims to improve maritime analyses. The project aims to make maritime transport more accessible by reducing the risk of accidents at sea, reducing the environmental impact of shipping and reducing the costs of maritime infrastructure. — The MARIA project includes several parts. One thing to be analysed is the traffic patterns of shipping and in that ship’s behaviour. It’s about what affects navigation, the road choices you make, how ships interact with other ships, how fairways are excellent and weather and other conditions. This is what Lars Markström, project manager for MARIA says. Analysis of vessel data: Thanks to AIS transponders, which are mandatory on all merchant ships, a large amount of data from ships’ voyages can be collected. We have a database where we can store several types of data. It’s about geographic data, but also weather data," says Lars Markström. In concrete terms, the project expects to be able to investigate new waterways within the Kattegat-Skagerrak that reduce the fuel consumption of ships, reduce the number of accidents between ships and between ships and, for example, bridges in narrow waterways. A new way of thinking: The foundation is to build models for how ships behave, create virtual traffic patterns and then analyse the intended changes of the fairways. — This with virtual traffic patterns is a relatively new way of thinking in shipping. An established method is based more on pooling expertise that tells you what a change will have for its effects. But this type of analysis becomes person-dependent and difficult to override. The virtual traffic patterns can complement this type of analysis because the analysis is not personal and is based on large amounts of data," says Lars Markström. In 2017, the MARIA project eases anchor and hopes to eventually contribute to increased competitiveness for shipping in the transport sector. “We believe that we create an important scientific basis for decision making,” says Lars Markström.

Medium