Route Selection Approach for Vessels in Ice Covered Waters

Abstract

Arctic sea ice melt fast and soon the North Pole will be open water. Besides disadvantages of the global warming to the environment and ecology, it brings some opportunities to the logistics industry. Ice navigation has been conducted intensively in summer seasons of the year, since 2009. Vessels started to move through the Arctic region because ice navigation shortens the route approximately 7.000 nautical miles. This paper focuses on route selection in icy waters. We proposed The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach for route selection problem based on the ice-state factors. The indicators of the proposed model involve cost-benefit factors. In this study, the optimal track is selected. Keywords: Arctic navigation, Decision Support System, Navigation in ice covered waters