Review and analysis of methods for assessing maritime waterway risk based on non-accident critical events detected from AIS data

The safe navigation of ships is of high societal concern. A promising approach for analyzing waterway risks is using non-accident critical events as surrogate indicators of collision accidents. These are typically detected in data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS). Recognizing the significant interest in this approach, this article provides a review and analysis of methods based on the detection of non-accident critical events from AIS data, which aim to provide insight into maritime waterway risk. Considering also recent calls for increased focus on foundational issues in risk research and safety science, each method in the literature is critically reviewed based on five questions: How are non-accident critical events defined? What is the accident-theoretical basis of the method? How are non-accident critical events ranked? How is the method used? To what extent has the method been validated? Based on the results, it is concluded that focus is needed to build evidence of the validity of the models’ results, if these are to be effectively used for waterway risk analysis. As a prerequisite, more focus is needed on how exactly non-accident critical events are defined, and what factors are involved in the relation between their occurrence and accident involvement.