The Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has approved Ukraine's proposal to amend the existing traffic separation schemes called "Approaches to the Ports of Odesa and Illichivsk" and "Between the Ports of Odesa and Illichivsk" by combining them into a single traffic separation scheme called "Approaches to the Ports Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Pivdennyi."
The Ukrainian Shipping Administration announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
"The changes adopted by the IMO improve the system of established routes for the movement of vessels in the northwestern part of the Black Sea and bring the system of routes that functioned at the national level in line with the system of established routes adopted by the IMO and implemented at the international level, thereby completing the work of experts at the State Navigation and Hydrographic Service and the Ukrainian Shipping Administration involving the review of the systems for determining the routes of ships over the past few years," the Ukrainian the Shipping Administration’s head Vitalii Kondrativ said.
The proposal adopted by the International Maritime Organization changes parts of the existing traffic separation scheme to increase shipping safety and eliminate the differences between the traffic separation schemes that were in force at the national level and the traffic separation scheme that the International Maritime Organization adopted in 1981.
The amendments also update data such as the WGS 84 coordinate system, the name of the traffic separation scheme, the numbering and names of parts of the traffic separation scheme, the names of some ports, and marine navigation charts. The updated traffic separation scheme establishes the safest routes in the deepest waters for vessels going to and from the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Pivdennyi, as well as the ports of Mykolaiv and Kherson.
