I think that in general, a course that (a) gets the ship from where it started to where it needs to go and (b) stays within navigation channels and (c) minimize

I think that in general, a course that (a) gets the ship from where it started to where it needs to go and (b) stays within navigation channels and (c) minimizes the amount of time spent in configurations where a loss of control would result in a collision will spend a nonzero amount of time in such configurations.