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Introduction

This document forms deliverable D2.6 for the C3S for Global Shipping project and describes the development and progress of the operational indicators up to and including May 2018. The "operational indicators" are offered to the end-users via the C3S Global Shipping service that itself is being provided on ECMWF's CDS platform. They are data products delivering information relevant to the operational activities of the end-users. These products differentiate themselves from the other type of information products provided via the C3S Service, the so called "scientific indicators", in the sense they are a higher/second level product/derivation that is based either on the "scientific indicators" or directly on the CDS's available met-ocean data. These indicators were envisioned to be of direct interest to the end-users, allowing them to assess possible variations in cost/timing/routing/safety factors of their operations, whereas the "scientific indicators" form background information, indirectly used as the context within which end-users plan their operations.
Initial choices for the development and implementation of certain specific operational indicators and their envisioned operational use, were made following a three-day project meeting in Rome at the beginning of January 2018. During this meeting, the findings of the scope refinement process that had taken place during the initial three months of the project together with the feedback from ECMWF on the scope document and its presentation at Reading, were further analysed and discussed among the project members, emphasizing the inputs, comments and needs of the end-users. This resulted in a list of indicators that at the time of discussion were deemed meaningful, technically feasible and reachable within the allotted time-frame. However, since not all information on temporal, spatial and dynamic resolution of the input data nor the full availability of input data as well as envisioned validation data was known at the time of consolidating the indicators list, some priority shifts have taken place within the development strategy of the operational indicators. The following list of operational indicators are in order of development priority which is relative to the level of validity and meaningfulness of the indicator reachable with currently available data and algorithms:

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1. Fuel consumption model: This indicator is explained in further detail in section 2. Note that work on this indicator experienced some time lag due to its key developer having been lost from the project due to an unforeseen private matter. A replacement is being sought for and interviews have already been done as well as offers have been sent out to two candidates. One of those has already accepted and will become available already on the 11^th of June. We are positive this delay can be minimised over the rest of the project
2. Route cost ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival): This indicator is explained in further detail in section 3.
3. Route cost performance speed / STW (Speed Through Water): This indicator will inform the end-user on the fuel and emission savings they will be able to obtain by having their ship sail at a reduced speed over a pre-defined route during different times of the year (note that we have pre-defined over 80 routes, coinciding with the world's most sailed trade routes). The indicator directly relates to the so-called "slow-steaming" practice, i.e. sailing at lower than maximum design speed, that is used in the shipping industry to save fuel costs. The end-user will be able to choose from a number of several discrete values and several standard ship types, the combination of which will determine the route cost as a function of metocean conditions with respect to the ship's normal/design speed. Development of this indicator will be based on the relation between a ship's speed through water and its power needs. For its further development we can heavily rely on the fuel consumption model and, with the latter well underway, it is foreseen that that this indicator will be the next in line to be developed and implemented.
4. Route ETA variation: This indicator is intended to show to the end-users the difference in average sailing time they will experience when sailing certain pre-defined routes at different months of the year. It will show which parts of the routes cause delay and which cause a speed-up by linking route sections to the metocean conditions. Average sail times will be calculated for several standard ship types sailing with a shaft power that is equal to the shaft power needed for sailing at its maximum design speed in calm water. This way it will also be possible to display the speed variations of the ship along different route sections as it encounters different metocean conditions. As such, like with route cost performance speed, also this indicator will be based on the relation between a ships speed through water and the effect of metocean conditions while keeping a constant shaft power. Therefore, we expect that this indicator will be further developed in parallel to the route cost performance speed.
5. Ice limits for different ship ice classes: This indicator will display the geographical extend of different ice conditions that in effect create the boundaries which different ships with different ice classes may or may not sail within. Development of this indicator has started and it is clear that the input data that is needed, sea-ice thickness and sea-ice concentration, will be available. Good progress is expected over the next three months.
6. Availability of new Arctic routes: This indicator is related to the previous one, but instead of looking at geographical boundaries, this indicator will provide information on the possibility of sailing along the NE and/or NW passage for ships with different ice class certification. For its current development state, several NE and NW passage routes have been defined. Further steps, linking these routes to the ice conditions, will be taken in the coming months.
7. Cost of new Arctic routes: This indicator will determine the cost of sailing along the ice infested NE and NW passages for ships of different ice classes. Similarly as the previous indicator, we will use the concentration and thickness of sea-ice as input data for this indicator. In this case the ice conditions will be linked to the impact they will have on ship performance (speed, power need) which in turn will be linked to the fuel consumption via the fuel consumption model. In addition, we will investigate other costs that are associated with arctic voyages such as the cost of an ice-breaker or other escort vessels. This indicator is still in its initial stage of development. The largest issue for this indicator at the moment is to find data for linking the influence of ice conditions (i.e. sea ice resistance) to a ship's performance. Because of this, progress is momentarily slow but expected to pick up pace once the data is found since it is expected to benefit heavily from the development of the related operational indicators.
8. Risk of hull damage due to structural fatigue: This indicator will give the probability of experiencing or accumulating significant hull stress for a ship in different areas of the world at different months throughout the year. As described in "D1.1.1 Description of the scope of the service - Operational Indicators", the development of this indicator will be based on linking certain metocean conditions to the occurrence of so called springing and/or whipping vibrational effects in ships, and this for several standard ship types with different dimensions and hull specifications. Development of this indicator is still in an early stage. This is due to the fact that until now we have been unsuccessful in obtaining the needed data for testing and validating the proposed method. A method in itself has been found to be available from literature, however, it is important to obtain ship load and stress measurements time-series for any testing and validation of the method (the needed metocean data is available from the CDS). At this stage we are in contact with DNV-GL (top world ranking classification society), since we know they have a working group executing related work on owners with hull stress devices in place. DNV-GL sees a lot of potential in providing structural fatigue risks (as well as cargo loss risk information, see next indicator) as they know there is nothing of the sorts available currently and they anticipate that exposure of end-users to even a basic implementation of this indicator will help develop the industry's interest and speed-up development in this area beyond its current experimental stage. Therefore, DNV-GL is open to provide contributions to the project where time permits. When it comes to providing the data we need, it is so that this data does not belong to DNV-GL themselves, but are the property of the individual shipping companies. These companies are not immediately keen on sharing their data if they do not see any value for them in doing so. As such, we are now investigating how to convince the shipping companies to share their data with us within the context of this project and for developing the indicator.
9. Risk of cargo loss: This indicator will give the probability of experiencing cargo loss for container ships in different areas of the world at different months throughout the year. As described in "D1.1.1 Description of the scope of the service - Operational Indicators", the development of this indicator will be based on the 6-degrees of motion of a ship in relation to average and extreme metocean conditions for a few standard container ship types. Development of this indicator is still in an early stage due to the same reasons as described above for Damage risk due to structural hull fatigue. Also here we are looking for assistance from DNV-GL related to data sets they have indirect access to.
10. Biofouling: This indicator will give the probability of experiencing increased bio-accumulation on the hull of a ship (resulting in fuel penalties and increased emissions) in different parts of the world for different months of the year. Development of this indicator is in an early stage as we are looking for a method that has predictive value and only needs a limited number of input parameters. Discussions have been ongoing with the Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA (http://research3.fit.edu/ccbc) to deploy a simple method for biofouling risk calculation using the primary parameters of sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, ocean colour and ocean currents (Dürr & Thomason, 2010). Discussions are advancing but some issues have recently arisen regarding IPR related concerns on the side of Florida Tech, complicated due to the fact that their research up to now has been done for the navy and thus is not easily/freely available. A common agreement is sought for and the issues will hopefully be resolved in the coming weeks. We expect to implement this indicator only at an experimental/basic level, primarily because the scale and resolution of the input datasets are not very well suited for defining a regional/local phenomenon such as biofouling. Also, it should be noted that biofouling was not promised as an indicator at the end of SC1, but is being taken up again due to a lot of interest from the end-users.

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This document presents an overview of the status of the operational indicators for the C3S for Global Shipping project. The complete updated list of operational indicators is given in section 1, followed by a discussion on the feasibility and value of different indicators to the maritime industry. Possible issues with input data and validation data are highlighted as well. For reference, the indicator definitions are also briefly mentioned.
The Fuel consumption/shaft power model operational indicator development, progress, and results are given in section 2. The model is in an advanced stage of development and is functional w.r.t. climatology datasets as input. The next step is to integrate the seasonal forecast datasets within this indicator.
The Route cost ETA indicator uses the DIRECT sail planning algorithm, which is described in detail in section 3. This indicator is undergoing code testing with actual routes, and CDS metocean data, however, testing results, as presented in this document, are at a preliminary stage and will be greatly expanded upon in the coming few weeks. Therefore, significant updates to this indicator are expected in the next iteration of this document.

Appendix / Code

Appendix A – Code for Fuel consumption model

The python notebook code files for the Fuel consumption model are delivered in the form of a zip archive datafile together with this document. Filename "C3S_D422Lot1.OSM.2.6(1)201805 Operational_Indicators_Technical_Note_AppendixA_code_FCM"

Appendix B – Code for Route cost ETA

The MATLAB code files for Route cost ETA are delivered in the form of a zip archive datafile together with this document. Filename "C3S_D422Lot1.OSM.2.6(1)201805_Operational_Indicators
Technical_Note_AppendixB_code_RouteCostETA"

References

References

Bartholomew-Biggs, M. C., Bartholomew-Biggs, M. C., Parkhurst, S. C., & Wilson, S. P. (2002). Using DIRECT to solve an aircraft routing problem. Computational Optimization and Applications, 21(3), 311-323.

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Wilson, S., Bartholomew-Biggs, M., & Parkhurst, S. (2009). A global optimization approach to solve multi-aircraft routing problems. In L. Weigang & A. G. de Barros (eds), Computational Models, Software Engineering and Advanced Technologies in Air Transportation. Engineering Science Reference (IGI-Global), pp. 237-259.

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