A bird's eye view of the shipping traffic on the north sea

A bird's eye view of the shipping traffic on the north sea

Anonymus, A.

Rijkswaterstaat

1982-01-01

The absence of information on the North Sea Shipping traffic flows in general and on the Dutch part of the continental shelf in particular caused the North Sea Directorate of Rijkswaterstaat to initiate an aerial observation project, called 'Verkeers Onderzoek Noordzee Visuele Identificatie (VONOVI)' or 'North Sea traffic analysis by visual identification'. This project evolved into a very elaborate observation system, taking about 13 manyears for a team of 10 people. By means of intermediary questions the project was adapted a number of times, enabling it to answer questions on the nautical problems of the North Sea in many instances. A number of factors in this report have caused conflict situations to develop with respect to the use of the North Sea and shipping behaviour. These situations determined the need for reliable and extensive data on shipping traffic in the broadest sense. It was possible to gather data on a short term by using the aerial observation method. Subsequently the project could be completed within a limited number of years. The North Sea was subdivided into thirteen main flight areas, each divided into parallel flight tracks. The courses of ships within the area under investigation together with positions and names were recorded by flying at low altitude. All additional information was derived from Lloyd's Register of Ships (with the ship's name as an entry). For data processing, the computer of the Data Processing Division of Rijkswaterstaat was used. All gathered data were stored in a computer file indentified by the flight-area. By means of specially developed computer software, the route-intensities, route-widths and route-compositions were obtained. Also six density maps were made. From these the location of the high- and low- density areas can be determined. If needed, plotting sheets of the results of one or more flights can be made by computer. This enables ship type- and ship size selection. The effect of traffic regulating measures is evident from the route-data. In the traffic separation schemes, the number of situations with ships meeting in a head-on situation with a chance of collision is small. In areas where no traffic regulating measures are in force these situations occur five times as often. The data resulting from the VONOVI-project are in line with its aims. They present an overall and yet complete picture of the North Sea traffic, presented in several annexes and appendices. But, in fact, it still is only a first impression, based on sampling. As are suit of the observation method used. the data represents a static traffic picture, and have a statistical value only.

coastal shipping
nearshore shipping
Norht Sea
traffic flow

TPJ4000

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1b8421a3-c91a-4b28-bee8-e33821637953

Rijkswaterstaat

Rijkswaterstaat Communications 33 - ISBN 9012039533

Hydraulic Engineering Reports

report

© 1982 Rijkswaterstaat