A probabilistic model for navigational accident scenarios in the northern Baltic Sea

Navigational accidents in wintertime conditions occur relatively frequently compared to other water conditions, due to the complexity of sea ice conditions and corresponding operations. This paper presents a probabilistic model for navigational accident scenarios in the Northern Baltic Sea, based on an extensive analysis of integrated databases. Accident data, vessel data, sea ice data, atmospheric data and data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) are integrated to create an understanding of the patterns in accident occurrence. Focus is on navigational accidents with a potential to lead to oil spill, which is relevant to improve the knowledge base for maritime risk analysis in context of response preparedness assessment. The probabilistic model is developed as an expert model, where the data analysis is taken as background knowledge for defining the model structure and assigning probabilities. The model is constructed as a Bayesian Network as this is a useful tool for reasoning under uncertainty, ensuring compatibility with other modules relevant for analyzing the extent of oil spill in an accident and the related response.