Navigation Environment Factors for the Investigation and Evaluation of Water Traffic Safety in the Yangtze River

This work aims to investigate the state of traffic safety in the Yangtze River, taking the navigation environment factors into account. Since accident data can directly represent the water traffic safety situation to some extent, it is widely used to evaluate the water traffic safety in the Yangtze River. The absolute accident index and relative accident index are two kinds of reasonable assessment data, but they can hardly represent the actual situation in different waterways when the navigation environment is changed. To overcome this problem, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) is employed for the evaluation of water traffic safety aiming at different navigation environments in this paper. First, detailed accident data for 2009-2011 as officially issued by the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) of China in four different waterways and three water levels is described. Moreover, the corresponding navigation environments are also analyzed. Then, the evaluation of water traffic safety is studied by applying the C²R and C²GS² models. Finally, the results of the theoretical models are compared with traditional methods. This method can evaluate the water traffic safety in different waterways. The traffic flow, traffic accident, and the level of water traffic safety can be evaluated more scientifically and precisely. In the face of different navigational environments and water-traffic safety situations, the MSA can use these data and/or conclusions to improve their management level.