Use of Data from Automatic Identification Systems to Generate Inland Waterway Trip Information

Abstract

Data from archived automatic identification systems in the Paducah, Kentucky, region were analyzed to produce reliable trip data for inland waterway vessels. Because of confidentiality concerns, few options for finding such trip data exist; this lack of data affects the quality of risk calculations. A combination of geographic information systems, relational databases, custom programming, and data visualization tools was applied to extract meaningful vessel traffic information and to detect events occurring within ports and waterways. The geographic configuration of the Paducah port area made the generation of trip data more difficult. However, this problem was overcome by the categorization of all trips into general river movements and the calculation of the total number of towboat trips transiting in the area through river movements or engagement in fleeting, docking, or lockage operations. The data from automatic identification systems were discovered to be of high quality and capable of supporting many analyses. These analyses included waterway and port congestion, hotspot identification, accident reconstruction (and near-miss investigation), and the impact of extreme weather on port and waterway traffic.