AIS Data Case Study: River Level and Vessel Approach Variation at Melvin Price Locks and Dam in St. Louis District

Abstract

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), St. Louis District (MVS), manages multiple lock and dam structures on the Mississippi River. One of these, Melvin Price Locks and Dam (MPLD), was the subject of at least 12 allision events from downbound (southbound) vessels between January and November 2018 according to US Coast Guard (USCG) records, an unusually high number for this location. In an effort to understand how vessel operations change under varying river conditions, historical river gauge data and historical vessel position data for both upbound (northbound) and downbound (southbound) traffic were examined together to describe general approach paths for vessels at different water levels. Historic tracks for vessels involved in allusion events are not included in this work because of ongoing investigations at the time of publication.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 07, 2020
Accession Number
AD1095043

Entities

People

  • Aron Rhoads
  • Cory Tabbert
  • Dave Gordon
  • Dillen Myers
  • Edward Brauer
  • James Wallace
  • John Vest
  • Marin Kress
  • Tim Lauth

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Army Corps Of Engineers
  • Automatic Identification Systems
  • Case Studies
  • Coast Guard
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Data Analysis
  • Engineers
  • Identification
  • Identification Systems
  • Marine Transportation
  • Mississippi
  • Mississippi River
  • Navigation
  • Rivers
  • Transportation
  • United States
  • Waterways

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Maritime Security/Maritime Homeland Security
  • Riverine Ecology
  • Theoretical Analysis.