|
| |
Vessel Operations Model of the St. Lawrence Seaway
Client Requirements
The United States and Canadian managers of the St. Lawrence
Seaway required a vessel operations model. The managers needed to test
numerous water management plans to determine the impact on ship operations and
ship costs. Each water management plan is a complex series of water levels
and flows at 13 locations on the Seaway. Each plan covers 100 years of
history and comprised many thousands of data items.
What Was Provided
Lauga & Associates provided a simulation model and other
software tools for the Seaway managers to use. The work included many work
shops, training sessions and meetings with stakeholders in the marine sector.
The Model
 | To realistically characterize ship details, a 28,000
record data base of ship movements through the Seaway was incorporated into
the simulation. Each movement record had 73 fields that defined ship
particulars, logistics and cargo. |
| To provide fine detail, the Seaway was divided into 362
segments, each about 1 nautical mile. Each segment was defined by:
particular operations rules, several speed rules, and an unique current speed
equation defined by water level and flow. |
| Each 100 year simulation of a plan processed about
500,000 day by day water levels and flows. |
| Each 100 year simulation generated about 46 million
ship records through each of the 362 segments. Detailed information
about fuel consumption, delays, transit times and cargo carried and vessel
draught limitations was created. |
| The simulation provided reports about how the water
management plans affected ships in aggregate, and on a ship by ship basis.
Operational performance indicators included: transit times, low water delay
events, high river gradient delay events, speed reduction events for low water
conditions, speed reduction events for high water conditions, etc.
Vessel costs for capital, operations, fuel, pilotage, Seaway tolls, etc. were
also reported.
|
|
Lauga
& Associates Consulting Ltd. - Port Planning and Marine
Consultants 
