Abstract:
The increasing number of vessels navigating through the Strait, hazardous cargo transportation, complex navigational conditions and extreme weather conditions pose serious environmental and safety hazards for the Istanbul Strait and the surrounding residential areas, which are of high strategic, historical and economical importance for Turkey. This study aims to investigate the impact of extreme weather conditions, vessel arrival processes and prioritization policies on the maritime transit traffic in the Istanbul Strait, through the deployment of an integrated simulation model, which provides a practical environment to analyze the effects of a comprehensive set of environmental and meteorological conditions, type and frequency of transit traffic demand, availability of support services and decision/policy rules applied by the Turkish Straits Vessel Traffic System (TSVTS), via scenario analysis. Vessel arrival rates under extreme weather conditions in the Istanbul Strait and the prioritization policy of TSVTS for directlindirect passing vessels have been analyzed and integrated into an earlier version of the Istanbul Strait Maritime Traffic Simulation Model, which also covers the Turkish Straits Vessel Traffic System Rules and Regulations (TSMTR&R), the pilotage and tugboat services, traffic lanes and overtaking conditions, as well as a stochastic modeling of visibility and current conditions in the Istanbul Strait. Scenario analyses have been developed to analyze the effects and interrelations of vessel arrival rates, pilot and tugboat availabilities, vessel transit prioritization, pursuit distances between vessels, seasons and storm occurrences on various performance measures.|Keywords: Simulation Modeling, istanbul Strait, Turkish Straits Vessel Traffic Services (TSVTS), Vessel Prioritization Policies, Extreme Weather Conditions
