Exploring the Pirate Attack Process Risk along the Maritime Silk Road via Dynamic Bayesian Network Analysis

Abstract

The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) is an important channel for maritime trade between China and other countries in the world. Maritime piracy has brought huge security risks to ships’ navigation and has seriously threatened the lives and property of crew members. To reduce the likelihood of attacks from pirates, it is necessary to study the risk to a ship exposed to attacks from pirates on the MSR. Firstly, risk factors were established from three risk component categories (hazard, mitigation capacity, and vulnerability and exposure) and the risk index system of piracy and armed robbery events was founded. Secondly, the dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) method was introduced to establish a pirate attack risk assessment model ad to conduct a quantitative analysis of the process risk of a ship being attacked by pirates. Finally, combined with the scene data of the MSR, the process risk of a ship being attacked by pirates was modeled and applied as an example. The results showed that the overall risk of a ship being attacked by pirates is the lowest in July and the highest in March. In the whole route, when the ship was in the Gulf of Guinea, the Gulf of Aden–Arabian Sea, and the Strait of Malacca, the risk of pirate attack was the highest. This dynamic network model can effectively analyze the level of risk of pirate attacks on ships, providing a reference for the safety decision-making of ships on ocean routes.