Dear Readers, It is my great pleasure to introduce issue 54 (126) of the Scientific Journals of the Maritime University of Szczecin. In this issue, we publish results of current research on marine technology, marine navigation and marine traffic engineering. The introductory article entitled “Optimisation approach in multi-stop routing of small islands” has been prepared by Prof. Srećko Krile (University of Dubrovnik) and Editor-In-Chief of a sister journal, Nase More (Our Sea) – an internationally-renowned specialist in optimising logistics processes. This publication was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland from the fund devoted to popularising science: grant no. 790/P-DUN/2016. I am sure this article will be informative for all readers interested in the issues of increasing efficiency of transport operations at sea. The Marine Technology and Innovation section included articles dedicated to the wear and tear of machine components, security in the oil tanker industry and minimising fuel consumption as well as improving the quality of bunkering services. The Navigation and Maritime Transport section includes articles addressing models of ship traffic as a tool in manoeuvring processes, an attempt to analyse the reliability of navigational charts and a discussion on the performance of GNSS receivers. The Transportation Engineering section includes papers about marine transport engineering. This section provides information on the comprehensive method of formal safety assessment of ship manoeuvring in waterways, shows the use of simulation methods in defining further development of the approach channel to Ystad as well as analyses the efficiency of man overboard manoeuvres. The Miscellaneous section gathers articles addressing the relationship between educational systems and labour markets using an example of the Maritime Management curriculum, as well as an investigation of the underwater noise associated with remotely-operated vehicles. I would like to use this opportunity to encourage authors from all around the world to publish their findings in the Scientific Journals of the Maritime University of Szczecin. I also invite all readers to visit our new website http://scientific- journals.eu/readers, which contains online versions of the current issue as well as archival editions of the journal. Assoc. Prof. Leszek Chybowski Editor-in-Chief Szczecin, 15 June 2018

The routing problem of small island ports is, in many cases, firmly dependent on country topology, e.g., how to connect islands with a main (home) port, where the order of stops can be different, especially if there are not enough passengers or cargo waiting to be transported to or from every port. Thus, we need a capable optimization tool with which we can adapt each route for an appropriate time schedule; for example, some routes in one cycle can touch each island (forwards or backwards) but some routes can be incomplete, to touch only a few of them. The carrier has to find space for price-cutting (lower prices per journey – more passengers on board), to be more attractive in free-market competition. In such route optimization, we have to interconnect minimal transport cost with maximal revenue (money from tickets), which could be a very demanding task (a non-linear objective cost function). Instead of a non-linear polynomial optimization, which can be very complicated and time-consuming, the network optimization methodology could be efficiently applied. The main goal is to find more efficient routes, to decrease expenses and to increase revenue at the same time (dual mini/max problem).

Bunkering is very important for the maritime industry because of the need for continuity of trade, its relation to the energy industry and its great economic value. Today, the volume of the world’s bunkering market is around 350 million tons annually. Although there are about 400 major bunkering ports in the world, most of the demand is concentrated in a few strategic ports: when comparing strategic regions of the world, Istanbul has a very small share. With this in mind, this paper aims to demonstrate the current situation of Istanbul and to improve service quality using Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment. Our results show that the criteria which customers look for, in order of importance, are: supply waiting time; bunker quality; usage and availability of barges; duration of bunkering operation; and bunker price and price competitiveness. The steps to be taken to improve service quality are determined as: increase storage facilities and capacities; create a structure that can provide 24/7 bunker supply; and increase importance of bunkering in port infrastructure and management thinking (bunker port concept). It is possible that the findings can be a guide to ship fuel suppliers, especially in Turkey, to improve service quality and increase their fuel sales volume.

The article deals with the influence of surface roughness, processed by various technological methods, on the wear-resistance characteristics of the surface layer of high-precision parts of ship machinery and mechanisms. It considers various technological methods of processing parts; rotary cutting, grinding with vibration damping, rotational honing, grinding with metered removal of surface material and elastic rolling. It was found that the application of rotational boring as a method of finishing not only forms an additional, highly wear-resistant surface layer on the surface of the parts, but also provides high productivity. The process of grinding with vibration damping significantly reduces the transfer of abrasive particles to the surface being treated, and improves the accuracy, quality and wear resistance of the surface layer. On rotational honing, the discontinuity of the cutting of individual grains is combined with the continuity of the chip formation process; the metal does not adhere to the working surface of the cutting part of the tool, and the temperature in the cutting zone decreases, resulting in a high-quality, wear-resistant surface layer on the parts. When lapping with dosed removal of the material of the surface layer, the optimum thickness of the highly-deformable surface layer is ensured, due to the possibility of controlling the abrasive action on the surface to be treated, which promotes the formation of a reliable, wear-resistant layer. Elastic rolling allows processing of non-rigid, thin-walled parts by stable, balanced, controlled forces, without reducing their accuracy, quality and wear-resistant characteristics.

Pressure pipes made of selected plastics are widely used in current water supply systems. Unfortunately, the theoretical basis for modeling transient flows in these pipes has not been clarified yet. For simplified one-dimensional numerical modeling, a model is commonly used in which the total deformation of the pipe walls is expressed by the sum of instantaneous and retarded deformations. One of the main problems lies in the correct experimental determination of the creep function defining the properties of the polymer. The influence of other parameters on which the numerical solution of the method of characteristics is based is the subject of the research presented in this paper

Nowadays (August 2017) position data can be obtained generally from satellite navigation systems (SNS), such as GPS and GLONASS, and satellite based augmentation systems (SBAS) which can be either global, such as EGNOS, GAGAN, MSAS and WAAS, or regional, such as NAVIC (IRNSS) in India. Two new global SNSs, Galileo and BeiDou, three new global SBASs, SDCM, KASS and SNAS, and one new regional SBA, QZSS in Japan, are under construction. The generic name given to all these abovementioned systems is GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems). This paper presents details of the following: changes that have occurred in the cumulative core revenue in different GNSS market segments (road, Location Based Service LBS, surveying, agriculture, timing & synchronization, aviation, maritime, drones and rail in 2017) in the last 8 years; an overview of the GNSS industry and location-based services in the world; details of current and future GNSS market evolution; GNSS unit shipments in 13 different categories of maritime application; the frequency and constellation capabilities of GNSS receivers; GNSS frequencies that will be common in the future; the adoption of multi-constellation, multi-frequency and dual-frequency as key enablers of improved accuracy and integrity; GNSS services available for civil and authorized users, and multiple signals in the case of all four global SNSs.

The paper presents the overall risk management state for the crude oil tanker fleet, evidenced by EMSA and other international marine organisations. Based on historical statistical data related to fleet size, accident reports, amount of oil spilled on the sea and the economic value of the crude oil transport business, the risk acceptance criteria are evaluated. The Formal Safety Assessment is further used for a systematic assessment of risk, where potential hazards are analysed with structured methods (HAZID) and represented in event trees. The paper studies three risks: PLL (potential loss of lives), PLC (potential loss of containment) and PLP (potential loss of property). A general approach is presented and discussed with a particular focus on the evolution of risk acceptance in recent decades and evaluations of risk F-N curves for different tanker sizes.

Vessel passage speed is one of the parameters describing the vessel traffic stream on a selected waterway. Knowing the probability distribution of vessel passage speeds is essential for modeling vessel traffic streams on a waterway. This article undertakes probabilistic modeling for vessel speeds in restricted areas, where the distribution of the vessel passage time of the waterway section is known. The probabilistic procedure of the inverse random variable is used. Four different cases are considered. First, the probabilistic distribution of the vessel passage speed is given, where the vessel passage time is described by the normal distribution in certain restricted areas. The next three cases present the probabilistic distribution of vessel passage speeds on the Szczecin–Świnoujście fairway, where the vessel passage time is described by the extreme value distribution, the Frèchet distribution and the Weibull distribution.

The goal of research presented in this article is to check if a neuroevolutionary method with direct encoding is able to be a part of autopilot of the vessel. One of the important tasks of vessel autopilots is to keep a course as straight as possible or to bring the ship back on the route as efficiently as possible. In this paper, the adaptive neuroevolutionary autopilot is described and tested on a simulation model of a ferry. Neuroevolution is a combination of two different but related fields of artificial machine learning: evolution and neural networks. The combined method is very flexible and can be applied to other ship control tasks. The results of computer simulation of the neuroevolutionary course-keeping system have been included.

Port approaches are high-traffic areas with limited manoeuvring space. Navigation in such areas requires the analysis of large amounts of information, which can impede decision processes. One solution may be the development of decision support systems dedicated to these areas. This paper presents an attempt to build a navigation decision support system operable in the approach area leading to the port of Świnoujście (Poland), with ship domain implemented as a safety criterion. Assumptions for a decision support system to be used by sea-going vessels in port approach areas are formulated and discussed. Specific features of these areas, such as traffic density, bathymetry, available manoeuvring space and legal limitations are taken into account. The source and scope of information available to the ship have been analysed. The scope of decision support has been defined. A ship domain has been proposed as a safety criterion. Approach areas leading to the port of Świnoujście have been investigated on the basis of real Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Vessel movement processes in the chosen area were analysed. Ship domains in various parts of the area were determined. The first results concerning criteria for navigational safety assessment are presented. The conducted studies showed significant differences in the size of domains. A case study was performed on a decision support system operable in the approach area leading to Świnoujście.

Navigational charts are a basic source of information for seafarers. But how accurate and reliable are they? How much trust and confidence can be put in them? Unfortunately, the answer is not so simple; it is far more complicated than merely saying that one chart is accurate and reliable while another is not. However, any seafarer navigating in unfamiliar waters should have the necessary skills. It is a great challenge – some may say an impossibility – to keep the thousands of navigational charts up to date. But exactly how out of date, how inaccurate, are the chart data? Chart users will have a better idea now that the Hydrographic Office is gradually implementing a new chart feature called the Zone of Confidence (ZOC) box which replaces the Source Diagram that is currently in use on large-scale charts. Source Diagrams, and now the improved ZOCs, assist seafarers in assessing hydrographic survey data and the associated levels of risk of navigating in a particular area. According to the new edition of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) specifications, S-4 navigational charts will provide more information on ZOCs. The current paper discusses these new regulations.

In Japan, it is becoming difficult to move freight long distances using only trucks, owing to a shortage in truck drivers. In this context, there is a tendency to also actively utilize ferries or roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships. Intermodal freight transport uses two or more suitable modes of transport from the origin of goods to the destination. In order to promote intermodal freight transport, it is necessary to analyze factors such as the characteristics of transported goods, transportation services and fares, and lot sizes. In this study, we focused on ferries and RORO ships in Japan, and attempted to identify cargoes transported using different modes of transport, based on the net freight flow census. In conclusion, high volumes of “agricultural and fishery products,” “metal machinery,” “chemical industrial,” “light industrial,” and “miscellaneous manufacturing products” can be transported using ferries or RORO ships. Specifically, there is a tendency that products are segregated by transportation mode such as a truck, or a ferry and a RORO ship.

The increasing sizes of ships determine the interest in modifying the already existing solutions. Simulation models allow us to analyse the possible modernisation options. The article presents analysis results for the width of the fairway to Ystad, marked with buoys with respect to navigation safety. After a thorough analysis, taking into account the safety of navigation, further possibilities of development have been determined. Study results are aimed at designing new solutions in case of modernization of the approach channel to Ystad.

The following paper presents an original, universal method of formal safety assessment of ship manoeuvring in sea waterways. The method allows evaluation of a ship’s formal safety assessment on various types of waterways. It may be a basis for standardizing the methods of performing the ‘navigational analyses’ which are required in Poland.

The following paper’s aim is to provide a numerical analysis of well-known man overboard (MOB) manoeuvres undertaken by vessels’ masters’ in critical situations, when a passenger or crew member falls out from a vessel. The simulation, based on a complex hydrodynamical model of a merchant ship, which compares 3 variants of this manoeuvre, shows that the Scharnov turn is the shortest and the quickest one, but the ship finishes the Anderson turn with the lowest velocity. Also, the time of the Williamson turn is short enough, to successfully finish the operation. The duration of MOB manoeuvres is likened to the results of a medical overview, with not only the duration of MOB, but also the time between falling overboard and the beginning of the manoeuvre playing a crucial role in saving a casualty’s life.