Development of Remote Radar/AIS Network System for Observing and Analyzing Vessel Traffic in Tokyo Bay

Accurate vessel traffic observation is indispensable to carry out vessel traffic management, design of vessel traffic route, planning of port construction, etc. In order to observe the vessel traffic accurately without many efforts such as the use of a ship or car equipped with special radar observation system and the preparation of observation staff, the authors have been developing completely automated remote radar/AIS network system covering the main traffic area in Tokyo Bay. The composite radar image observed at Yokosuka and Kawasaki radar stations with AIS information can be seen on web site of Internet. In addition to the development of radar/AIS observation system, the software to analyze observed vessel traffic flow has been developed. This software has various functions such as automatic tracking of ship’s positions, automatic estimation of ship’s size, automatic integration of radar image and AIS data, animation of ships’ movements, extraction of dangerous ship encounters, etc. The configuration and functions of the developed remote radar/AIS network system are shown first in this paper. Then various functions of the software to analyze vessel traffic are introduced, and some analyzed results on the vessel traffic in Tokyo Bay are described demonstrating the effectiveness of the developed system.