Shore-side ship tracking advances

Captains,

Shipboard Automated Identification System (AIS) transmissions, originally intended to complement radar for navigation safety, are increasingly being combined with vessel database information, distributed via the internet and displayed graphically in shore based command centers. This week's STIRES announcement by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is about a web-based service for Member States to track ships in European waters. (STIRES stands for SafeSeaNet Information Relay and Exchange System.)

The US Coast Guard's equivalent system is called Watchkeeper. However, unlike Europe, which has EMSA as a standards and information service-provider for member states; the United States has the USCG as a single maritime services, standards, information and authority provider. So Watchkeeper is imbedded in a larger project called IOC/Command 21. This is a multiyear project authorized by the Safe Port Act of 2006 to transform USCG Sector Command Centers into Interagency Operations Centers (IOCs). IOC/Command 21 will also include world-wide tracking via the Long-Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system, as well as the Coast Guard's new Rescue 21 system for search and rescue cases.

RDML W

11 Mar 2010

EMSA HAS launched a new system allowing EU port authorities, governments and agencies to track all ships in EU waters.

The European Maritime Safety Agency plans in time to roll out the STIRES surveillance system worldwide, the agency told Fairplay today.

The position of any vessel transmitting an AIS signal is indicated by EMSA’s STIRES, which was launched yesterday. It also allows users to determine whether a ship is carrying hazardous cargo, to view all high-risk ships, to track a ship's course to establish where it has been at different times and to find out which port the ship will arrive at and when.

It uses a single-platform, map-based interface and the existing SafetySeaNet, which is based on the AIS information gathered by a network of receiving stations along EU coastlines.

The EU anti-piracy naval force is already using EMSA's satellite-based global Long Range Identification & Tracking system to monitor ships passing through the Gulf of Aden.

EMSA plans soon to integrate this system with STIRES, the agency told Fairplay.