An improved maritime traffic situation complexity model for intelligent maritime management in the inland ferry area

In increasingly busy inland ferry waterways, traditional maritime traffic situation awareness mainly relies on the experience of Officers on Watch (OOW) and Vessel Traffic Service Operators (VTSOs). Although advancements in science and technology can provide more navigational data to OOW and VTSOs, they often find it difficult to intuitively perceive navigation risks from the massive amounts of heterogeneous data. Current maritime traffic situation models mostly used in open waters make it hard to objectively grasp and understand the overall complexity of ferry water area traffic and to capture the most critical ship targets in local areas. Therefore, this study proposes an improved complexity model for maritime traffic situations in inland waters. It selects dynamic traffic density factor, ship approaching factor, and conflict area to assess the local complexity between ships. Then, the global complexity of traffic in the ferry water areas can be evaluated using the entropy weighting method. These promising results suggest that assessing maritime traffic complexity on different levels can help OOW and VTSOs manage traffic in ferry water areas and identify target vessels that require traffic services and control. The application of this method supports the construction of smart maritime management, enhancing the efficiency and automation of ferry water areas.