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Assessment of ship collision estimation

methods using AIS data

Conference Paper · October 2014

DOI: 10.1201/b17494-27

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Assessment of ship collision estimation methods using AIS data
P. Silveira, A. P. Teixeira & C. Guedes Soares
Centre for Marine Technology and Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico,
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

ABSTRACT: The paper reviews different models that have been proposed for estimating ship collision can-
didates. The method based on the collision diameter proposed by Fujii and Pedersen is first used to assess the
number of collision candidates, using AIS data received from ships off the coast of Portugal during one
month. A new method is proposed to determine the number of collision candidates based on the available AIS
messages. In this method pairs of ships are modelled as rectangles, using length and breadth information
available in AIS messages. These rectangles are projected onto a line perpendicular to their relative velocity,
(using course, heading and speed information from AIS) and the pair is considered a collision candidate if
there is overlapping in the projections. A parametric study is performed to assess the contribution of im-
portant parameters of this method on the collision candidates estimates. The objective is to investigate the ca-
pability of the method for better predictions of collision candidates based directly on AIS data.

1 INTRODUCTION candidates, using one month of AIS data received

Over the years, concerns with maritime traffic regu-
lation resulted in the introduction of Traffic Separa-
tion Schemes (TSS). The first TSS was introduced in
the Dover Strait in 1967 with the main objective of
avoiding head on collisions. It was made mandatory
by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in
1971. Since then, many more TSSs have been intro-
duced in different parts of the world. These routeing
systems have been combined with traffic monitoring
by Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) in an attempt to
improve the safety of navigation and reduce the
number of ship collisions. The introduction of the
Automatic Identification System (AIS), intended to
enhance the safety of navigation and situational
awareness and has enabled the collection of large
amounts of data that may be used for studying mari-
time traffic and associated risks, in particular ship-
to-ship collision risk.
Several models have been proposed to estimate the
frequency of ship collisions (e.g. Pedersen 2010;
Montewka et al. 2010, Kaneko 2013). All models
depend on a method to determine the occurrence of a
collision. Different methods may take into account
length, breadth, speed, course difference, ship dy-
namics, or combinations of these parameters. With
the advent of AIS, large amounts of data have be-
come available to develop such models (Silveira et
al 2013).
This paper proposes a new method for estimating
the ship collision candidates. A parametric study is
carried out to analyse the influence of important pa-
rameters of the model on the assessment of collision
from ships off the coast of Portugal. The objective is
to identify the situations where collision avoidance
actions prevented the collision. This reduces the col-
lision candidates to values that would reflect the ac-
tual situations in which ships have taken collision
avoidance actions in real collision scenarios.
2 COLLISION ASSESSMENT MODELS
An important concept when addressing ship colli-
sion problems is the concept of ship domain. Fujii &
Tanaka (1971) developed models to determine the
traffic capacity of a route or waterway which used
the concept of ship domain, as an area around the
vessel which the navigator would like to keep free of
other vessels, for safety reasons. Goodwin (1975) al-
so used this concept in collision assessment models.
Several shapes have been proposed for ship do-
mains, such as circular, elliptical or polygonal.
Fuzzy ship domains, such as proposed by Pie-
trzykowski et al. (2008) have introduced a higher
level of sophistication to the concept, by creating
different levels of safety within the domain, rather
than using a binary classification (safe or unsafe) for
a given situation. Ship domain models depend on the
definition of the size of the domain, which may pre-
sent significant variations (Wang et al. 2009).
Most collision assessment models are based on the
work of Fujii et al. (1971), and MacDuff (1974),
which was later improved by Pedersen (2010).
These authors calculate the frequency of collision as

 =  
where NG is the number of geometric collision can-
didates during a time period (which is the number of
pairs of ships on a collision course during that time
period) and PC is the causation probability, defined
as the probability that a pair of ships which are on a
collision course (a collision candidate) fails to avoid
a collision.
Fujii et al. (1970) developed a model to determine
the number of geometric collision candidates from
ships sailing in crossing waterways. The model re-
lies on the calculation of a collision diameter, which
depends on the length, breadth and relative velocity
of ships using crossing waterways, and also on the
crossing angle of the waterways. The collision di-
ameter is calculated using the expression:
() () () ()
   
=  + 

()  #/
 (#)

! " + %1 − & ∙
where i and j are ship classes, Li(1) is the length of
class i ships on waterway 1, Lj(2) is the length of
class j ships on waterway 2, Bi(1) is the breadth of
class i ships on waterway 1, Bj(2) is the breadth of
class j ships on waterway 2, Vi(1) is the average ve-
locity of class i ships on waterway 1, Vj(2) is the av-
erage velocity of class j ships on waterway 2, Vij is
the relative velocity between class i and class j ves-
sels and θ is the crossing angle of the two water-
ways. Vij is computed using the expression
 
) = *+)
(#) ()
, + +) , − 2)
Pedersen (2010) developed Fujii’s model to in-
clude the probabilistic distribution of ships along the
width of the waterways. The number of collision
candidates is taken as:
3 .3
0 = ∑ ∑ 2Ω 278 ,8
: 
() ()
∙
()
5 76 :) <=∆?
where Q1i is the number of class i ships using wa-
terway 1 during time period ∆t, Q2j is the number of
class j ships using waterway 2 during time period
∆t, zi is the distance of class i ships to the centre of
waterway 1, zj is the distance of class j ships to the
centre of waterway 2 and f is the lateral distribution
of traffic using a waterway.
Figure 1 shows the collision diameter used by Fu-
jii et al. (1970) and Pedersen (2010) to determine
collision candidates.
(1) Kaneko (2013) considered that Pedersen’s (2010)
model was not satisfactory in cases where the cross-
ing angle is small, and proposed a method that cate-
gorizes the crossing angle by its sharpness into two
types. The method improves the estimation of the
number of collision candidates in crossings with
small angles.
()
1 −  ∙
()  #/


' ( (2) Figure 1: Collision diameter according to Pedersen (2010)
Montewka et al. (2010) developed a method that
replaces the geometric collision diameter by a Min-
imum Distance To Collision (MDTC), a critical dis-
tance under which collision avoidance actions can-
not prevent the collision from occurring. The value
of this minimum distance depends on the crossing
angle and on the ship type, and is calculated based
on a ship dynamics model, improving traditional
methods that rely on a constant critical distance to
all vessels and any crossing angle. The method was
applied for 3 types of vessels (container carrier, pas-
(#) ()
) ./ (3) senger ship and tanker), 9 meeting scenarios, 17
crossing angles (from 10º to 170º) and 4 types of
manoeuvres conducted by both vessels to avoid col-
lision. The method relies on the assumption that the
vessels are under way at full sea speed and both start
evasive actions simultaneously.
Goerlandt & Kujala (2011) developed a method
(6 ) ∙
to determine the number of collision candidates that
(#)
5
relies on a simulation of ship traffic. The number of
collision candidates is computed using an algorithm
(4) that determines, for each combination of traffic
events (a traffic event is defined as one voyage of
one ship from a given point of departure to a specific
destination along a predefined route), in how many
moments in time the contours of simulated ships
overlap.
All the methods described are based on the ships
position, course and speed, which will lead to colli-
sion in case no changes are made. There are a num-
ber of collision avoidance systems that use similar
concepts to identify the situations in which it is nec-
essary to change course and speed to avoid collision,
including in close quarters, as for example described
in Perera et al. (2011, 2012), as well as in references
therein. However, despite the existence of that type
of devices and on the human actions that will also be
present in many cases, the probability of collision
continues being proportional to the number of ships
in this risk situation, in which case the present anal-
ysis is justified.
3 USE OF AIS DATA IN SHIP COLLISION
MODELS
From 31 December 2004 all vessels over 300 GT
engaged in international voyages, all cargo vessels
over 500 GT and all passenger vessels are required
to be equipped with AIS. This system allows auto-
matic exchange of information between stations
(ships and coastal), using VHF radio waves. There
are 27 message types defined in ITU (International
Telecommunication Union) recommendation
M.1371-5, and two classes of shipboard equipment:
class A (used mainly by commercial vessels) and
class B (used mainly by fishing vessels and pleasure
craft). The reporting intervals of class A equipment
vary between 2 seconds and 10 seconds (depending
on the ship’s speed and rate of turn) if the ship is not
moored or at anchor. If the ship status is moored or
at anchor, the reporting interval is 3 minutes, unless
the speed is greater than 3 knots, which sets the re-
porting interval to 10 seconds. The message types
used in this study were position reports (message
type 1, 2 and 3) and static and voyage related data
(message type 5) transmitted by class A equipments.
Information contained in position reports includes
date/time, Maritime Mobile Service Identity
(MMSI) number, navigation state, rate of turn, speed
over ground, position accuracy, latitude, longitude,
course over ground and heading. Static and voyage
related data messages include information on MMSI
number, IMO number, ship’s name, destination,
ETA, callsign, type of ship, length, breadth and
draught.
AIS data are becoming an increasingly important
source of information for maritime traffic studies.
Aarsæther & Moan (2009) applied computer vision
techniques to automatically separate AIS data in or-
der to obtain traffic statistics and prevailing features
of traffic, enabling the production of a simplified
ship traffic model. The computer vision techniques
are used assuming that there are well defined ma-
noeuvre patterns, which can be identified by analyz-
ing traces of the ship positions. The method is found
to yield good results in normal navigation scenarios,
while the accuracy in an inner harbor area is limited
due to a very complex manoeuvring behaviour.
Montewka et al. (2010) used AIS information to
model the vessel traffic profiles used to develop
their MDTC method. Vessels’ course, speed, length
and breadth, and the lateral distribution of traffic
across waterways were modelled from AIS data for
all vessel types and meeting scenarios considered.
This was achieved by defining three counting gates:
one gate counted the number of vessels arriving and
departing from the Gulf of Finland, another gate
counted N-S traffic and the remaining gate counted
E-W traffic.
Mou et al. (2010) performed a statistical analysis
of ships involved in collisions, identifying the corre-
lation of CPA (Closest Point of Approach) with
ship’s size, speed and course, using AIS data from a
Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) off the port of Rot-
terdam. A collision risk assessment (with the term
“risk” standing for probability of collision in the
context) was performed using SAMSON (Safety As-
sessment Models for Shipping and Offshore in the
North Sea), calculating the average basic collision
risk in the area based on ships’ type, size, age, flag,
weather conditions and location. This basic collision
risk was then multiplied by factors related to TCPA,
CPA and encounter angle, resulting in a dynamic
risk of collision value intended to be used in real
time decision support systems.
Goerlandt & Kujala (2011) used information that
resulted from a detailed AIS data analysis as input
for their simulation. Individual vessel trajectories
were grouped into routes corresponding to voyages
between two ports. From these routes a number of
distributions were extracted, such as departure time
(which in this case cannot be satisfactorily described
by a stationary Poisson model), route, ship type, ship
dimensions and ship speed.
Silveira et al. (2012) characterized the maritime
traffic and performed a statistical analysis of the
traffic using a TSS off the coast of Portugal based on
AIS data. Moreover an algorithm was developed to
assess the risk profile and the relative importance of
routes associated with ports.
Using the same AIS data set, Silveira et al. (2013)
estimated the number of collision candidates based
on predictions of future positions of ships and on
the Fujii’s et al. (1970) and Pedersen’s (2010) defi-
nition of collision diameter. Values of causation
probability suggested in several studies were used to
calculate the expected number of collisions which
were then compared with the number of collisions
that have occurred between 1997–2006, registered
and maintained by the Portuguese Maritime Authori-
ty.
The reliability of information provided by AIS
ship stations has also been object of numerous stud-
ies. Harati-Mokhtari (2007) exposes various errors
detected in AIS messages, that can be originated by
wrong static information inputted during installation
and/or by wrong voyage information inputted while
operating the equipment.
4 ASSESSMENT OF COLLISION
CANDIDATES

The assessment of the number of collision candi-

dates is carried out based on one month AIS data
collected from ships in an area around the TSS off
Cape Roca (Figure 2) using two different methods:
1. Collision Diameter Method: compares the Clos-
est Point of Approach (CPA) with the Collision
Diameter (CD), as defined by Fujii et al. (1970)
and Pedersen (2010).
2. Projection Method: is based on the overlapping
of the projections of ships modelled as rectangles
(using length and breadth information from AIS
messeges) onto a line perpendicular to their rela-
tive velocity vector.

Figure 3: AIS message types 1, 2 and 3 in the studied area, be-

tween 09/07/2008 and 09/08/2008.

L
2
B

C D B
2
Figure 2: TSS off Cape Roca and Berlengas' area to be avoided Figure 4: Reference point for AIS position and overall dimen-
(2008). Source: Portuguese Hydrographic Office (IH) sions of ship. Note that dimension B on the left is not related to
B/2 (half-breadth) on the right.

Figure 3 shows a plot of AIS traffic in the studied
area during the time period between 09/07/2008 and
09/08/2008.
For both methods it is necessary to correct the po-
sition contained in AIS messages, which is the posi-
tion of the GPS antenna, to a position located at half-
length and half-breadth. This can be achieved know-
ing the ship’s heading and dimensions A, B, C and
D shown on Figure 4, which are transmitted in AIS
type 5 messages.
CPA is the smallest distance at which the correct-
ed positions if two ships can be from each other,
computed based on their positions at a given mo-
ment and assuming constant courses and speeds. To
apply method 1, CPAs for all possible pairs of ships
were computed for every second of data recorded
and compared with collision diameter computed for
the same pairs of ships. If CPA was less than the
collision diameter and TCPA (Time to Closest Point
of Approach) was positive (the CPA will occur in
the future), the pair was considered a collision can-
didate.
 Situations may occur for which the CPA is small-
er than the collision diameter but the ships do not
collide. The heading information that can be trans-
mitted in AIS position reports may be used to en-
hance the classification of collision candidates.
Method 2 is proposed with this intent.
To apply method 2 it is necessary to determine
the direction perpendicular to the relative velocity of
two vessels. The relative velocity vector is computed
using COG (Course Over Ground) and SOG (Speed
Over Ground) information from both vessels, con-
tained in AIS messages. The rectangles centred on
the corrected positions, with the principal dimension
aligned with the ship’s heading, with length equal to
the ship’s length and width equal to the ship’s
breadth are then projected onto a line perpendicular
to the relative velocity vector, as shown in Figure 5
and Figure 6. If the projections overlap, the pair is
considered a collision candidate (Figure 6). This
procedure was repeated for every second of data (or
each time the date/time field of one AIS message
was different from the one on the previous message).
B CA
HB
CB
V BA

C A
CA
HA
A
Figure 5: Projection of rectangles - no collision candidate
The relative velocity vector is:
@ABC = DAB − DAC
) (5)
The length of rectangle A’s projection is given
by:
HC|| ⋅ )KBCL MC + G
=EF = G HCL ⋅ )KBCL C (6)
with GHC|| as a unit vector parallel to ship A’s head-
ing, GHCL as a unit vector perpendicular to ship A’s
heading, )KBCL as a unit vector perpendicular to the
relative velocity vector, MC as the length of ship A
and C as the breadth of ship A. The projected dis-
tance between the centers of rectangles A and B is:
BC EF = @ABC ⋅ )KBCL (7)
with @ABC as the position vector of the center of rec-
tangle B relative to the center of rectangle A. The
overlapping occurs when:
CPQR BPQR
BC EF ≤

(8)
For both methods, if the distance between the two
ships is greater than 20 miles the pair is not consid-
ered a collision candidate because it is assumed that
no collision avoidance action will be taken when the
ships are that far from each other. If the pair is in-
deed a collision candidate is classified as such when
the distance is less than 20 nautical miles (nm).
B
Hb
CB

C A V BA
HA
A
Overlap of projections
Figure 6: Projection of rectangles - collision candidate
The two methods were applied using AIS mes-
sages transmitted between 09/07/2008 and
09/08/2008, by ships in an area bounded by meridi-
ans 009º 28’ W and 010º 30’ W and by parallels 38º
16’ N and 39º 50’ N. All collision candidates for
which the collision would occur outside of the des-
ignated area were disregarded.
Pairs of ships were classified several times as col-
lision candidates until one or both of them altered
course or speed. The algorithms for both methods
classify the pair as multiple collision candidates for
the same possible collision event, so it is necessary
to delete repeated collision candidates. The algo-
rithm used to delete the repeated candidates com-
pares MMSIs, COGs, SOGs of both ships and the
time at which the collision candidate occurred with
past collision candidates to determine if the collision
candidate event is already recorded. If so, the most
recent collision candidate is kept and the others are
deleted.
 The projection method was then applied introduc- ment they are classified as collision candidates until
ing uncertainty in the position included in AIS mes- the moment they stop being collision candidates). It
sages. If the position of the centre of the rectangle is was found that for 27.3% of the candidates this time
within SET meters of the position included in the interval was less than one minute. In fact, one mi-
AIS message, the shape of all possible positions of nute is not enough time to analyze and perceive a
situation as a potential collision and therefore the ac-
the rectangle is depicted in Figure 7 a), with L and B
tion taken would not be classified as a collision
as the length and breadth of the ship, respectively.
with ∆?V of less than one minute were disregarded.
avoidance action. As a consequence, all candidates
However, to simplify the application of the meth-
od, the shape of all possible positions of the rectan- Table 2 shows the number of collision candidates af-
gle was assumed to be as seen in Figure 7 b), in- ter this correction.
creasing both the length and the width of the
rectangle by 2SET . Projection SET (U)
Method 0 10 20 30
B+2 e pos Collision
3429 3758 3946 4081
candidates
B
Collision diameter CD / 2 CD
Method
Collision
4188 4613
candidates
Table 2: Collision candidates, corrected by removing those
L L+2 e pos with ∆WX under 1 minute

As stated before, if the initial distance between

the two ships is greater than dmax=20 nautical miles
the pair was not considered a collision candidate be-
cause it is assumed that no collision avoidance ac-
a) b) tion was taken when the ships are that far from each
other. However, this limit may also lead to the clas-
Figure 7: Position error sification of “false positives”, pairs of ships that are
considered a collision candidate and subsequently
The collision diameter method was also applied change their course not as a collision avoidance ac-
for half of the collision diameter (CD/2), shown in tion but as a planned course alteration according to
Figure 1 and for the full collision diameter. The re- their route plan. Reducing the value of this maxi-
sults are shown in Table 1. mum distance (dmax) is expected to reduce the num-
ber of “false positives”, but may also prevent colli-
Projection SET (U) sion candidates that take evasive actions very early
method 0 10 20 30 from being identified.
Collision A sensitivity analysis was performed on the clas-
4719 5033 5222 5347
candidates sification algorithm, using both methods, to deter-
mine how the described maximum distance parame-
Collision diameter CD/2 CD ter (dmax) affects the number of collision candidates.
method The results are shown on Table 3.
Collision
5340 5656
candidates
Table 1: Collision candidates estimated using the projection dmax (Maximum distance in nm)
and collision diameter methods 5 10 15 20
Collision
“False” collision candidates may result from situ- diameter 1962 3237 4114 4613
ations in which a ship is altering its course and is in method
a collision course with another ship but only during Projection
brief moments. To eliminate some of these “false” method
1387 2390 3052 3429
collision candidates (ships that were on a collision
course and change their courses or speeds but not as Table 3: Number of collision candidates for different maximum
a collision avoidance action) the collision candidates distances (dmax)
were sorted by the time interval during which they
were collision candidates (∆?V ) (i.e. from the mo-
 The histograms in Figure 8 and Figure 9 were
produced from information associated with the colli-
sion candidates.
Figure 8 shows the distribution of collision can-
didates according to the value of TCPA when they
stopped being collision candidates, that is, when
some action was taken that resulted in that pair of
ships not being in a collision course anymore. The
candidates were classified with the projection meth-
od for a maximum distance of 20 nautical miles.
Figure 8: Distribution of collision candidates by final TCPA,
projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm
Figure 9: Distribution of collision candidates by final distance,
projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm
Figure 9 shows the distribution of collision can-
didates according to the final distance between the
two ships when they stopped being a collision can-
didate. It is clear that the number of collision candi-
dates increases as the distance decreases, indicating
some relation with collision avoidance actions.
However, it is not possible to define an exact limit of
distance under which there are no false collision
candidates identified.
Silveira et al. (2013) estimated the number of col-
lision candidates using the collision diameter meth-
od with a TCPA limit of 20 minutes, excluding all
candidates that took collision avoidance actions
when the remaining time before a collision was over
20 minutes, using AIS messages from a different
(much larger) geographical area. Although it is not
possible to directly compare the results presented
here with the results published by Silveira et al.
(2013), the method used in that work is equivalent to
the collision diameter method presented here, with
the difference that the collision candidates classifica-
tion was made for every second of data in this study,
whereas for the previous study (Silveira et al.
(2013)) the classification was made for every 30
seconds of data, due to limitations in computational
power given the much larger number of AIS mes-
sages. In Figure 8 the number of candidates peaks
are between TCPAs of 20 and 40 minutes, while in
Figure 9 the number of candidates peaks are be-
tween distances of 1 and 4 nautical miles. This is
consistent with the expected behaviour of ship mas-
ters when performing collision avoidance actions.
However, there are differences between head-on,
crossing and overtaking situations. Head-on situa-
tions are defined as being those with a course differ-
ence of 170º or higher; overtaking situations are de-
fined as being those with a course difference not
exceeding 10º; and crossing situations are all the re-
maining (Montewka et al. 2010). This classification
of collision situations is not necessarily coincident
with the definitions of the COLREGs (International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea). Par-
ticularly, in an overtaking situation, if the relative
speed is very small, final distances tend to be lower
and final TCPAs higher than in a crossing situation.
This can be observed by comparing Figure 10 with
Figure 11 and Figure 12 with Figure 13. The number
of candidates classified as head-on, crossing and
overtaking situations is shown on Table 4. The ex-
pected values of final distance and final TCPA are
shown on Table 5.
Projection Method
Head-on Crossing Overtaking
Collision
32 1082 2315
candidates
Collision diameter method
Head-on Crossing Overtaking
Collision
candidates
73 1343 3197
Table 4: Collision candidates by type of collision situation,
maximum distance of 20 nm
Head-on Crossing Overtaking Total
Final distance
8.65 8.47 5.88 6.72
(nm)
Final TCPA
20.0 47.4 69.5 62.6
(minutes)
Table 5: Expected values of final distance and final TCPA,
projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm
Figure 10: Distribution of collision candidates by final TCPA,
projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm, cross-
ing situations
Figure 11: Distribution of collision candidates by final TCPA,
projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm, over-
taking situations
Figure 12: Distribution of collision candidates by final dis-
tance, projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm,
crossing situations
Figure 13: Distribution of collision candidates by final dis-
tance, projection method, maximum initial distance of 20 nm,
overtaking situations
The values in Table 5 are useful to compare final
distances and final TCPAs in different collision situ-
ations, however they do not reflect the normal be-
haviour of ships performing collision avoidance ac-
tions (experience determines that the majority of
ships involved in a crossing collision avoidance situ-
ation do not take action when they are 8 or 9 miles
from the other ship, or when there are still 47
minutes before the collision). The reason for this de-
viation from reality is the number of “false” colli-
sion candidates, ships that were on a collision course
and stopped being not because of a collision avoid-
ance action but because of scheduled course altera-
tion or some other reason.
From the results of the collision candidates ob-
tained using the projection method, it is possible to
determine that for 9 pairs of ships the minimum dis-
tance was less than the collision diameter. Using the
collision diameter candidate classification method,
10 pairs of ships were in a situation where the final
distance between their reference points (the distance
when they stopped being collision candidates) was
less than the collision diameter. In these close quar-
ters situations collision was imminent.
Figure 14 shows the geographical distribution of
collision candidates classified with the projection
method (in red) and the 9 referred near collision sit-
uations identified with the same method (in blue).

Figure 14: Collision candidates and near collisions, projection
method, maximum initial distance of 20 nautical miles
5 POSITION ACCURACY AND ERRORS IN AIS
INFORMATION
The quality of the results obtained by the applica-
tion of the projection method, to determine the num-
ber of collision candidates, depends on the precision
of the position and heading information and on the
reliability of the ship dimensions included in AIS
messages. AIS messages contain some information
about the origin and accuracy of the position being
transmitted. Message types 1, 2 and 3 contain a posi-
tion accuracy flag, which indicates if the position is
accurate within 10 meters or not. Message type 5
contains a field which indicates the type of electron-
ic position fixing device used to obtain the position.
The value of position accuracy found on the AIS
messages used is shown on Table 6. About 28% of
the positions included in position reports are accu-
rate within 10 meters. Assuming that all these posi-
tions have an error of 10 meters and that the posi-
tions included in all other messages have an error of
30 meters, using the data presented in Table 2, the
number of collision candidates can be estimated as
3990 (projection method). These assumptions are
made without rigorous information of position accu-
racy in the area, and only to demonstrate that a GPS
position accuracy correction factor may be intro-
duced to the estimation of the number of collision
candidates.
Position accuracy flag
Accuracy Number of AIS messages
≤ 10 m 3831268
> 10 m 9698232
Table 6: Position accuracy of AIS messages
The heading information depends on the correct
installation of AIS equipment and on the connection
to an external device, typically a gyro compass or a
magnetic compass. If there is no heading infor-
mation, the special code ‘511’ is transmitted in the
heading field. About 4.9% of used messages of
types 1, 2 and 3 had no heading information. In
these cases the COG was taken as a good approxi-
mation of the heading, and used to compute the pro-
jection. The information on ship’s dimensions de-
pends on the correct installation of AIS equipment,
given that this is static data and is not altered by the
crew. About 6.3% of the used type 5 messages had
no information about ship’s dimensions.
In future work, the quality of the ship dimensions
information included in AIS messages may be eval-
uated by comparing it with information in ship data-
bases, such as the national maritime database main-
tained by DGRM (Direcção Geral de Recursos
Naturais, Segurança e Serviços Marítimos) or other
public or private databases. The quality of the head-
ing information may be evaluated by comparing it
with course and speed information, and also by
comparing those values with heading, course and
speed of nearby vessels. This information may be
used to compute average set and drift and estimate
the expected difference between heading and course
for a given ship, excluding the headings that fall out-
side a reasonable range.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The proposed method of projecting rectangles (as
representations of ships) to determine the number of
collision candidates from AIS records has the poten-
tial to yield more precise results than the method us-
ing the collision diameter, as shown by the number
of collision candidates computed, even when a posi-
tion error was introduced. Both methods depend on
the quality of AIS data. The projection method re-
quires knowledge of the heading of ships in addition
to all information required to apply the collision di-
ameter method, although when the heading infor-
mation is not available the ship’s course may be
used as an approximation.
The projection method is also suitable for use in
real-time collision avoidance systems (always keep-
ing in mind the limitations of AIS) and in traffic
simulations. The collision candidates obtained by
both methods are influenced by “false” collision
candidates, i.e. pairs of ships that stopped being col-
lision candidates because of a scheduled or other
type of course or speed alteration not related to colli-
sion avoidance. More realistic estimates of collision
candidates (i.e. with less “false” candidates) can be
obtained by decreasing the maximum distance pa-
rameter (i.e. ignoring all candidates which are at a
greater distance than this value), by ignoring candi-
dates with a TCPA under a certain limit, or a combi-
nation of both.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank DGRM (Direcção
Geral de Recursos Naturais, Segurança e Serviços
Marítimos) for providing the AIS data used in this
study. The contribution of the second author has
been provided under the scope of the project “IRIS-
Project Risk Management: Improving Risk Matrices
Using Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis”, funded
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Tech-
nology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia -
FCT), contract PTDC/EGE -GES/119230/2010.
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