A quantitative approach for delineating principal fairways of ship passages through a strait

•A cross-disciplinary application of ecological methods for maritime engineering.•A rigorous mathematical framework for delineating principal fairways boundaries.•Geo-visualise the effect of seasonal and directional factors for maritime corridors.•Identify the gaps between existing TSSs and cumulative activity patterns for vessel groups.

Seamen usually select popular routes according to navigational and hydrographical characteristics when passing through a strait with congested traffic. In order to minimise the possibility of collisions, Principal Fairways (PFs) are commonly used by sailors. It is essential to delineate PFs quantitatively and objectively for designing or refining routing measures. In this paper, a space use method found in habitat evaluation of wildlife is applied to extract PFs of ship passages through a strait. Compared with existing methods, the proposed method helps to identify cumulative activity patterns for ship groups derived from mass ship trajectories, and provides a clearer interpretation of shifting space-use patterns within strait corridors. Moreover, it gives a better insight for directional and seasonal factor for PFs in straits. Finally, this novel method is used to extract PFs in western Taiwan Strait and its adjacent sea. The results indicate that the proposed method is helpful to identify gaps between current ship routing system plan and cumulative activity patterns recognised by real ship trajectories.