Assessing Safety Effects of Digitization with the European Maritime Simulator Network EMSN: The Sea Traffic Management Case

This paper will give an intro into the technical backbone of the EMSN and derive necessary specifications to allow for objective testing in large scale. Further, it will demonstrate the potential of EMSN as a maritime safety test-bed on the STM case. Therefore, the simulations executed within the EMSN are evaluated regarding their safety level in order to demonstrate the effects of various measures to improve safety. Based on a fuzzy logic approach, numerical Data from the EMSN Data-Tracker is used as an input to assess a present traffic situation from the perspective of a specific ship and outputs a comprehensive safety index developed by expert opinions. The safety index is used to further analyze navigators’ behavior and decisions in different maritime traffic scenarios that are executed within the EMSN. http://www.transnav.eu the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation Volume 14