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Potential economic benefits of using a weather ship routing system at Short Sea Shipping

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Abstract

This contribution investigates the economic benefits of using weather ship routing on Short Sea Shipping (SSS) activities. The investigation is supported with the development of a ship routing system based on pathfinding algorithm, the parametrization of the wave effect on navigation, and the use of high-resolution meteo-oceanographic predictions. The optimal ship routing analysis is investigated in a European SSS system: the link between Spanish and Italian ports. The results show the economic benefits using ship routing in SSS during energetic wave episodes. The rate of cost savings may reach 18% of the total costs under particular bad weather conditions in the navigation area. The work establishes the basis of further developments in optimal route applied in relatively short distances and its systematic use in the SSS maritime industry.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Puertos del Estado (Spanish Ports Agency) for the wave predictions provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil and Environmental Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Spain

    M. Grifoll

  2. Nautical Science and Engineering Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Spain

    F. X. Martínez de Osés & M. Castells

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  1. M. Grifoll
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  2. F. X. Martínez de Osés
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  3. M. Castells
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Grifoll.

Appendix. Wave forecast description

Appendix. Wave forecast description

The wave predictions used are provided by the operational systems distributed by the Puertos del Estado (PdE). PdE together with the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) run and distribute twice-a-day wave and wind field forecast for the Western Mediterranean Sea. Wind forecasts, used to force the wave models, come from the HIRLAM (High Resolution Limited Area Model) model, running operationally at the AEMET. The forecast horizon is 72 h and the system generates wave hourly outputs (among other variables significant wave height (Hs), wave direction, and wave period). An initialization procedure is carried out in order to ensure good initial conditions: the model is forced using wind fields 12 h prior to forecast initialization. The wave numerical model is WAM (WAMDI 1988), version 4 (Günther et al. 1992). WAM is a third generation based on the transport of two-dimensional ocean wave spectrum without additional ad hoc assumptions regarding the spectral shape. For the Mediterranean domain, the shallow water version of the WAM model is used; therefore, refraction and attenuation effects are considered for those (few) grid points located in shallow waters. The model produces the wave directional spectra for each grid point. Then, it is used to obtain further information, Hs, peak wave period (Tp), mean wave period (Tm), mean direction, wind sea, and swell components, among others. Extended information of the WAM model implementation and additional numerical details are provided by Gómez-Lahoz and Carretero-Albiach (1997) and the mentioned web from the PdE.

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Grifoll, M., Martínez de Osés, F.X. & Castells, M. Potential economic benefits of using a weather ship routing system at Short Sea Shipping. WMU J Marit Affairs 17, 195–211 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13437-018-0143-6

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