Intelligent ship traffic monitoring for oil spill prevention: Risk based decision support building on AIS

The paper describes a model, which estimates the risk levels of individual crude oil tankers. The intended use of the model, which is ready for trial implementation at The Norwegian Coastal Administrations new Vardo VTS (Vessel Traffic Service) centre, is to facilitate the comparison of ships and to support a risk based decision on which ships to focus attention on. For a VTS operator, tasked with monitoring hundreds of ships, this is a valuable decision support tool. The model answers the question, Which ships are likely to produce an oil spill accident, and how much is it likely to spill?. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.