Maritime regulators and port authorities require the ability to predict risk exposure for strategic
planning aspects to optimize asset allocation, mitigate and prevent incidents. This article builds on
previous work to develop the strategic planning component and introduces the concept of a multilayered
risk estimation framework (MLREF) for strategic planning and operations. The framework
accounts for most of the risk factors such as ship specific risk, vessel traffic densities and met ocean
conditions and allows the integration of the effect of risk control option and a location specific spatial
rate ratio to allow for micro level risk assessments. Both, the macro (eg. covering larger geographic
areas or EEZ) and micro level application (eg. passage way, particular route of interest) of MLREF was
tested via a pilot study for the Australian region using a comprehensive and unique combination of
dataset. The underlying routine towards the development of a strategic planning tool was developed
and tested in R. Applications of the layers for the operational part such as an automated alert system
and sources of uncertainties for risk assessments in general are described and discussed along with
future developments and improvements
