Modelling Vessel Traffic Service to understand resilience in everyday operations

Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) is a service to promote traffic fluency and safety in the entrance to ports. This article's purpose has been to explore everyday operations of the VTS system to gain insights in how it contributes to safe and efficient traffic movements. Interviews, focus groups and an observation have been conducted to collect data about everyday operations, as well as to grasp how the VTS system adapts to changing operational conditions. The results show that work within the VTS domain is highly complex and that the two systems modelled realise their services vastly differently, which in turn affects the systems' ability to monitor, respond and anticipate. This is of great importance to consider whenever changes are planned and implemented within the VTS domain. Only if everyday operations are properly analysed and understood, it can be estimated how alterations to technology and organisation will affect the overall system performance.