Waterways Safety Management
The Baltic Sea is one of the busiest seas in the world, with around 2,000 ships at any given time. Increasing traffic and the automatisation of navigational systems lead the shipping sector towards the need for smaller crews but higher percision of data of the surrounding maritime environment, including the bathymetric data.
The emerging era of autonomous shipping and the technological development of onboard processes, decision support and safety systems, as well as the multi-use marine areas (such as offshore windparks) state the need for science-based waterways safety management.
The research group aims to be a strong partner for Estonian maritime sector and work with international consortiums, contributing to the development of competitive maritime economy through research in the areas of hydrography, waterways planning, smart solutions for aids to navigation, marine cartography, and safety of navigation.
Strong focus will additionally be directed on science-based higher education on all levels – Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral studies – taking into account the developments in the industry and relevant emerging competences required in the labour market.
Waterways Safety Management Research Group
Head: Tenured Full Professor Pentti Jouko Sakari Kujala
From 21.08.23 Tenured Full Professor Pentti Kujala, tenure professor of Waterways Safety Management, started his work at TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy.
He has 45 years of experience of education and research in marine technology related topics as Hydrography, Aids to Navigation, Waterway design, and Nautical Cartography.
He has been concentrating on the analysis of marine traffic safety both in open water and in ice. Full-scale experiments have been his favorite research topic and he has been onboard ships on all ice-covered waters: Baltic Sea, Russian Arctic, Canadian Arctic and Antartica.
Members of the research group: Inga Zaitseva-Pärnaste, Ahmed Nasr, Jim Henry Chen, Kirill Sustov
Ongoing project
The research team is currently focusing on the assessment of navigational risks of planned offshore wind farms. The aim of the navigation risk assessments is to identify the potential hazards to maritime transport and the likelihood of hazardous situations occurring, taking into account the traffic density in the maritime area during both the construction and the subsequent operation phases of the offshore wind farm. The risk assessment will identify potential consequences and possible mitigation measures.
The results will be validated using the Estonian Maritime Academy's marine simulators.