Marine route network construction and traffic flow analysis for ship intelligent navigation

The foundation of ship navigation is the determination of the initial route and speed, and current methods often require manual intervention. However, route networks can automatically identify the initial route, while traffic flow analysis intelligently plans the speed for each segment, thereby facilitating intelligent navigation. This paper proposes a method for constructing a maritime route network, combined with an analysis of ship traffic flow within the network to enhance ship navigation. In particular, this paper proposes a method of extracting network nodes based on the steering continuity of a ship, which can realize the accurate extraction of steering regions. Then, the routes between waypoint regions are extracted using spatial computation methods to construct a waypoint network. On this basis, the proposed method is applied to the trajectory data of commercial vessels in the Baltic Sea, where network construction and traffic flow analysis are performed. Through the analysis and comparison of navigation speed, ship size, and ship draft data for representative ship types in the Great Belt, specific navigation recommendations are derived for particular segments, highlighting the differences in navigation routes and route networks among different ship types, providing insights for ship intelligent navigation and maritime regulation.