The growth in industrial activity over the world directly affects the port activity in many countries. In fact, to meet the maritime transport demand, not only the number of ships is increasing, but the vessels are also increasing in size – thus, promoting economy of scale. On the other hand, it is hard for port infrastructure to grow at the same rate. Since the port access waterways may be undersized, a question emerges: how the density of maritime traffic combined with larger ships impacts harbour ship manoeuvres' safety? Additionally, how does this tendency impact the harbour efficiency?
In order to answer these questions, this paper proposes a System Dynamics (SD) model to assess the effects of manoeuvring accidents in maritime ports. SD approach allows a holistic view of the problem and the identification of important feedback structures that contribute to the dynamic behaviour. The model includes the port characteristics, the main dimensions of typical ships attending to the port, traffic levels and the human factors during navigation in restricted waters. By modifying these variables, the model allows to evaluate the impact of policies such as resizing the port dimensions, capacity and pilots training on the overall probability of accident and, consequently, on the port efficiency.
The results include the analysis from ten different scenarios. Since the probability of accidents is sensitive to the factors explored in each scenario, the results of these scenarios simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of several sets of policies.