When planning a new port it is essential to understand the impact on the surrounding waterways and the analysis of hazards in areas of congested and high volume marine navigation. As with any transport network, marine navigation increasingly requires assessment and review of potential risk.
 
This is a vital part in any planning and needs specialist people who are able to interpret and understand requirements to minimise risks.

Haskoning UK have developed a Marine Traffic Risk Assessment Model (MARTRAM) which provides a sophisticated modelling tool that is optimised for the analysis of marine risk in areas of high volume marine navigation. The model incorporates a wide range of features allowing realistic representation of marine navigation a full "what if" scenario providing flexibility for the model analysts to manipulate routes and vessel patterns to assess any range of options.

Collision avoidance procedures exist that emulate the navigational logic applied in the real world and local procedures can be applied. Vessel parameters are applied to each vessel class that specify avoidance action. Grounding analysis is achieved through consideration of risk areas, vessel draught, water depth and grounding incident ratios. Vessel class details can be recorded together with volumes and distributions at each gate allowing evaluation of new port facilities or alternative navigational channels.

Haskoning UK have been applying modelling and computational analysis to the issues of marine risk for more than ten years. The latest version of MARTRAM represents the forefront marine traffic modelling and risk assessment concepts.