Characteristics of the ship traffic distribution transverse to the navigation channel

As a part of the risk analyses carried out for the Oresund Link - the fixed link between Denmark and Sweden consisting of an immersed tunnel, an artificial island and a cable-stayed bridge - the structural safety of the bridge and tunnel with respect to ship collision loads have been evaluated. The safety analyses are concerned with determination of the structural failure probability given as the product of the collision probability and the conditional probability of failure given a collision. The present paper is focused on certain model parameters in the determination of the collision probability. A basis for the evaluation of the collision probability is detailed information about the present ship traffic in the area concerning annual number of passages, the ship types and the distribution of the location of the ship transverse to the navigation channel. In the present paper analyses of the distribution of the ship traffic along a line transverse to the navigation channel while approaching the considered structure (bridge, tunnel) have been carried out.