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

This paper studied the waterway transportation in Sabine-Neches Waterway (SNWW) using the automatic identification system (AIS) data. The SNWW is the most important waterway in Southeast Texas, which serves as an energy gateway to the U.S. The purpose of this paper is two-folded: one is to investigate the waterway transportation features in the SNWW from a macro level (using aggregate AIS data); and more importantly, this paper aims to investigate the frequency of vessel conflicts, which reflects the risk of vessel collisions in the SNWW. To realize these two purposes, AIS data were firstly cleaned to fit our research requirements, and a practical AIS-based method was proposed to evaluate the frequency of various types of vessel conflicts in the SNWW. This paper identified a series of hot spots in the SNWW that experienced high frequencies of vessel conflicts between big vessels, as well as those carrying hazardous materials. The paper also investigated the impact of time-of-day on the frequency of vessel conflicts at each hot spot. The findings of this paper can help researchers and waterway management agencies better understand the risk of navigation in the SNWW.