IMO Routes

General Information

North Sea

Baltic Sea

Clyde Marine Region

Adriatic Sea

Eastern Mediterranean Sea

IMO Routes

Layer Info
Category	Activities
Sub-category	Shipping

Description

Shipping routes designated and recognised by the International Maritime Organization.

MSP Challenge

IMO routes do not contribute to pressures on the ecosystem, but will influence the shipping intensity calculated by the shipping simulation. The total shipping intensity calculated contributes to surface disturbance and noise pressures.

Return to shipping.

The North Sea is very busy in terms of shipping, especially in the area of the Strait of Dover, to avoid incidents, IMO shipping routes are defined in the region.

Types

• Ferry
• Passenger
• Tanker
• Cargo
• Maintenance

Metadata

Data Source

Adapted from Rijkswaterstaat.

Original Title

Scheepvaart verkeersscheidingsstelsel Noordzee (Nederlands Continentaal Plat).

Description

The North Sea Shipping Traffic Separation Scheme (STSC) contains kilometer points along the axis of the shipping channels on the Dutch Continental Shelf, anchoring areas, shipping channels, boundaries, and zoning. This dataset has been designated as an As-Is source for EU targets. (Translated from Dutch description)

Creation Date

31-12-2010

Methodology

Data layer implemented as a starting plan in the MSP Challenge, assuming reasonable width of the lanes according to shipping intensity data. It was assumed, that the routes are applicable to all types of vessels considered in the shipping model.

North Sea Digitwin Edition

In the Nort Sea Digital Twin Edition the shipping routes layer was updated based on the same dataset from Rijkswaterstaat in 2019. The original name of the data is 'verkeersscheidingsstelsel' and was retrieved though WFS connection.

Sand Extraction Edition

In the sand extraction edition the data is the same as for the North Sea Digitwin Edition.

"There are about 2000 ships in the Baltic marine area at any given moment and about 3500–5500 ships navigate through the Baltic Sea per month (Stankiewicz et al. 2010, Madjidian et al. 2013). More than 50% of the ships are general cargo ships. Approximately 20% of the ships in the Baltic Sea are tankers carrying over 200 million tons of oil, about 11% are passenger ships operating about 50 million passengers (Stankiewicz et al. 2010, Meski and Kaitaranta 2014, Parsmo et al. 2016)." In Baltic LINes (2016): Shipping in the Baltic Sea – Past, present and future developments relevant for Maritime Spatial Planning. Project Report I. 35 p.

Types

• Cargo
• Passenger
• Maintenance
• Tanker
• Automated Vessels

Metadata

Data Source

HELCOM

Original Title

IMO ships routeing guide

Description

"This dataset includes digitized deep-water route, traffic separation schemes, precautionary areas and inshore traffic zones in the Baltic Sea as defined in the 9th edition of the Ships Routing Guide (2008) of the International Maritime Organization.

It was updated in 2017.

The update includes information about new traffic separation schemes and deep-water routes, amendments to the existing traffic separation schemes and establishment of new two-way routes which are not included in the original 2008 routeing guide, but were adopted by the 54th, 55th, 57th, and 58th session of the Sub-Committee on the Safety of Navigation of the IMO, and 3rd session of IMO's Sub-Committee Meeting on the Navigation, Communications, Search and Rescue."

Description retrieved from HELCOM's metadata page for this resource (2021-07-15).

Creation Date

Not available. Revision date: 2017-01-01

Methodology

The routeing guide's features where classified in their different zone types; only the features corresponding to "deep-water route", "recommend route", and "traffic lane' where considered as IMO shipping lanes. For those zone types the middle lines were taken into account and implemented in the platform with their average width.

Western Baltic Sea

The IMO Routes layer in the Western Baltic Sea Edition remains consistent with that featured in the Baltic Sea edition.

Not applicable.

This layer is not available in the Clyde Marine Region Edition.

For the shipping routes, the following types of vessels are considered:

Types

• Passenger
• Tanker
• Cargo
• Others

Metadata

Data Source

Provided by the project partner CNR-ISMAR based on data from portodimare.

Original Title

IMO - Traffic regulation zones: traffic lane

Description

"Ships' routeing systems and traffic separation schemes that have been approved by International Maritime Organization (IMO). The traffic-lanes (or clearways) indicate the general direction of the ships in that zone; ships navigating within a Traffic Separation Scheme or TSS all sail in the same direction or they cross the lane in an angle as close to 90 degrees as possible." Retrieved from portodimare on 2022-04-25.

Creation Date

2012/03/30

Methodology

The layer was implemented in the MSP Challenge as provided by the project partner (CNR-ISMAR), assuming that the routes apply to all vessel types.

In the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Edition the IMO Routes layer is an empty plannable layer. There is currently limited data available considering the Shipping Lanes and Traffic Separations Schemes in the Mediterranean.

Types

• Ferry
• Passenger
• Tanker
• Cargo
• Maintenance

Metadata

Not Applicable.