Monitoring Global Ship Traffic

Written By: Nurullah Opu

Since ever oceans have been important for people as a means of transport. The containerization counts as greatest transportation revolution in the 20th century and boosted the marine cargo traffic. Today, around 80 percent of the global trade by volume and over 70 percent of the global trade by value are carried by ships (United Nations conference on Trade and Development). The implication is that dozens of thousands of ships cruise around the oceans and even rivers each day. With such great traffic it became important to track the ship movements in order to prevent from collisions, environmental damage and keep an overview of the maritime traffic situation.

The automatic identification system (AIS) is an automated tracking system on board of ships providing information such as a unique identification of the ship, position, course and speed allowing authorities to track and monitor vessel movements. It is also used for collision avoidance supplementing the marine radar. According to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (International Maritime Organization) all international voyaging ships with a gross tonnage of over 300 and all passenger ships regardless their size must be equipped by a AIS (Wikipeadia).

MarineTraffic is an open, community-based project, which provides real-time information on the movements of ships and current location of ships in harbours and ports. Its core part presents a map (Google Maps, Nautical Charts and Open Street Maps) indicating real time vessel information based on AIS signals. The map shows all globally tracked vessels, indicated by the ship icons. The colour of each icon refers to a different kind of ship (e.g. passenger ship, container Ship, cruid oil tanker, etc.). Clicking on a ship icon a window opens showing information about the corresponding ship such as its origin and destination (including the planned arrival time), speed, draught, the past track, a track forecast and mostly an image of the ship. Clicking on the vessel’s “details link” all ship details as stored in the vessel database are revealed. This basic marine traffic service can be used without cost. More advanced functions such as a detailed voyage info are only provided on cost. This includes particular data services such as historical vessel tracks, vessel positions, affiliation to a certain fleet, different AIP services and more. MarineTraffic was originally developed as an academic project at the University of the Aegean in Ermoupoli, Greece. For more information consult the website.

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Reference

https://www.marinetraffic.com

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About Nurullah Opu

Imagine a workaholic, a curious person and a perfectionist, and the combination of three defines me how I am. Being born in the old skirt of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. I was raised in a competitive, practical life which has shaped me what I am today. Master's student, in University of Dhaka, one of the oldest, top ranked public university in Bangladesh. Majoring in Physical Geography and Environment, I see myself as a future data analyst having expertise in geo-spatial technology. So, from student life, I have practiced and earned handful experiences on spatial technology. ArcGIS Desktop, QGIS, Erdas Imagine, ENVI, ILWIS and SPSS are my preferred software to work on. Experiences on GIS programming with Python, Leaflet and Development in some ArcGIS platforms and also creating websites and blogs with great UX and UI design. My designs to be checked on the portfolio and blog section of my personal website (www.nurullahopu.ml). Reach out if you'd like contact me for any queries.