Study on utilization of Inland deep-draft waterway based on ship trajectories: Applied to Sabine-Neches Waterway

Sabine Neches Waterways (SNWW) is a deep dredged waterway to accommodate tankers and cargos, serving Southeast Texas, which is experiencing extensive growth from energy industries and ports. This study aims to study the utilization of inland deep-draft channel waterways (like SNWW), based on automatic identification system (AIS) data. This study serves as a part of the research to improve the channel capability and functionality due to interruptions, often termed the resilience of a waterway system. A series of methods was developed. First, all inbound and outbound trips of tankers and cargos were identified, together with their destination docks, arrival and departure times, and ship drafts along the trajectories. Trip information can still be extracted even with data missing. Then, the channel utilization was studied based on the number of trips to a dock, the occupation hours of tankers or cargos spent at a dock, as well as the relationship between ships' drafts and water depths (estimated by interpolation at each AIS point) along the trajectory. Additionally, the distribution of occupation hours by tanker at docks was studied. These proposed methods for studying channel utilization proved effective and can be applied to other inland channels. to study the utilization of inland deep-draft channels.