Probability of Collision in a Model Collision Avoidance System

Abstract

A basic concept for estimating the probability of collision for a ship navigating through a seaway with congested marine traffic can be derived by applying queuing theory to the relation between collision avoidance manœuvres and the traffic environment. Ships usually perform various ‘services’, such as altering course or collision avoidance, to other ships and geographical obstacles; the analogy of the collision avoidance system to queuing is that each arrival of another ship represents a ‘customer’ and each manœuvre of own ship corresponds to a ‘service’. A model for a collision-avoidance system was constructed analytically from queuing theory and expressed numerically, under assumptions based on traffic surveys and the statistical analysis of collision avoidance procedures at sea, in order to study the feasibilities of the model.