A Fundamental Study for Forecasting the Traffic Volume of Ships in the Akashi Strait

Abstract

Number of researches related to the traffic volume of ship in various seas and straits of Japan and observations of the behaviour of the passing ships have been reported these several years. The Akash Strait studied here is located on one of the most important maritime traffic routes in Japan. The recent exploitation of the Seto Inland Sea area has much increased the traffic volume and complicated the passing course of individual boats. As the first step of the forecasting study, the present paper described the recent trend of the traffic volume in the strait basing upon the various economical indices and records during the period 1963-1970. The procedure is summarized as follows: (a) Export (valued in milliom dollars) <EQ.1>___→Export tonnage (in 1,000 tons) <EQ.3>___→Number of foreign trade liners (Japanese) <EQ.2>___→Number of liners (foreign and japanese)→Number of liners cross-ing the Akashi. (b) Import (valued in million dollars) <EQ.2>___→Import tonnage (in 1,000 tons) <EQ.4>___→Number of foreign trade tramps (Japanese)→Number of tramps (foreign and Japanese)→Number of tramps passing the Akashi. (c) Tons of domestic cargo crossing the Akashi <EQ.5, 6, 7>___→Number of passes of domestic cargo boats through the Akashi. (d-1) Number of road motor vehicles in Japan→Number of motor vehicles of nine prefectures facing the Seto Inland Sea <EQ.8>___→Number of passes of ferry boats through the Akashi of ferry boats (d-2) Number of passes of domestic passenger boats and hydrofoils. (e) Number of passes of fishing boats. (f) the total of (a) through (e) gives the estimated annual number of passes of vessels through the Akashi, eastward and westward, respectively. As a result, the 1970 year value of traffic volmue the 1975 year value were expected to reach 148 per cent and 408 per cent of the average 1963 year value of observed traffic volume (1200 per day), respectively.