Effect of the Environment and Environmental Uncertainty on Ship Routes

Abstract

The United States Navy (USN) uses Optimal Track Ship Routing provided by ship routing officers (SRO) to aid in the safe transit of its ships. When a ship makes a transit, the ship provides the SRO an origin, a destination, and a date of departure, and the SRO will generate a route for the ship to proceed along. Avoiding severe weather is the most important consideration in determining the route. In addition to safe transit, the USN also focuses on fuel efficiency. In recent years, the meteorology and oceanography community has been providing more products that estimate the uncertainty in environmental forecasts. However, it is not known how much that uncertainty affects or should affect ship routing. This thesis explores the sensitivity and robustness of optimized ship routes generated by the Ship Track and Routing System optimizer to uncertainty in the environment.