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Developed in 1995 by Cirrus Logistics and Eagle Lyon Pope, AMATIS is a marine traffic simulation software model. It is used to assess the impact of changes in shipping channels and traffic volumes on vessel congestion and encounter risk. These changes are often related to land reclamation, construction activity or port developments.

The software comprises two modules - a CAD tool for defining shipping routes and a simulation module. The CAD tool enables the user to define numerous routes taken by vessels in the waterway concerned. These routes take the form of envelopes of water that prescribe the most likely course for vessels undertaking particular activities. A distribution profile can also be specified that determines the most likely spread of vessels across the width of any route envelope. These capabilities allow local traffic to be defined, such as ferry services, as well as inbound and outbound movements from the different port facilities. These envelopes are then displayed along with the shoreline geography.

Operating rules, such as vessel separations, berthing and de-berthing times, tidal and weather conditions that affect shipping can be defined and included in the modelling parameters. Ship encounters are determined by two shipping domains overlapping.

When run, the simulation generates animated shipping movements on the screen. It provides results in a number of areas: vessel movement and encounter histories, movement and encounter distributions, summaries of activity by route, berth utilisation figures and delays broken down by type (waterway, separation, tidal and weather).

Amatis has been used extensively in South East Asia and the UK with some of the projects identified below:

• Singapore
• Kowloon Point, Hong Kong – land reclamation project impacting the shipping channels
• Tonggu Waterway, Hong Kong – 1-way channel modelling
• ABP Dibden Bay, Southampton – new container terminal development
• Portsmouth – modelling of vessel holding area options
• Medway – modelling the impact of new berths at the gas terminal
• Shanghai – modelling implications of new oil and gas terminal