The safe navigation of ships, especially in narrow shipping waterways, is of the utmost concern to researchers as well as maritime authorities. Many researchers and practitioners have conducted studies on risk assessment for maritime transportation and have proposed risk reduction/control measures accordingly. This article provides a detailed review and assessment of various quantitative risk assessment models for maritime waterways. Eighty-seven academic papers and/or project reports are summarized and discussed. The review then proceeds to analyze the frequency and consequence estimation models separately. It should be pointed out that we further summarize the advantages and disadvantages of frequency estimation models and provide recommendations for their application. From the overview, we find that the quantification of the impact of human error is of great importance and should be considered in future studies. Possible solutions are also proposed in the discussions.