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Ship domain-based traffic capacity of Singapore Strait

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2025

Zhaoyang Lu  and
Liujiang Kang
Zhaoyang Lu
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, PR China
Liujiang Kang*
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Comprehensive Transportation Theory, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, PR China
*
Corresponding author: Liujiang Kang; Email: kanglj@bjtu.edu.cn
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Abstract

The Singapore Strait, as one of the busiest shipping waterways in the world, contains two chokepoints of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. With an increasing number of large-sized ships passing through the Singapore Strait in recent years, its traffic capacity has undoubtedly been affected significantly. Therefore, this study aims to assess the traffic capacity of the Singapore Strait under various mixed vessel compositions including different vessel types, vessel sizes and traffic volumes. A ship domain-based method for the estimation of the strait capacity and its variance is derived by using the minimum distance to collision among various vessel types. Then, based on the Automatic Identification System data, the strait capacity and its variances are quantitatively estimated for the two chokepoints of this waterway. Our results confirm that the strait capacity is decreasing with an increasing proportion of large-sized ships. It is also found that this traffic capacity is directly affected by the width of the strait, the size, the composition and the speed of the ships.

Keywords

automatic identification systemlarge-sized shipship domainstrait capacitytransportation
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , First View , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of Navigation

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