MarineTraffic - what is it?

Marine traffic is conditional free service to track the vessel's location online. On the world map you can find any ships that are in port or at sea. In the service options you can also track the location of the vessel by its name in real time.
When you select a vessel on the map, a window pops up with information about the vessel online:

• ship name
• type of vessel (container, tanker, passenger ship, etc.)
• ship status
• ship speed
• ship course
• ship's draft

Operating principle of Marine traffic and AIS systems

Nowadays, almost all ships are equipped with an automatic identification system, AIS, which allows you to track the ship and avoid collisions between ships. At what maximum distance can a ship be tracked on a map? It all depends on the height of the antenna located on the ship itself and at the nearest station on land. Conventional AIS stations cover a range of about 40 nautical miles (about 75 km). In some cases, the location of the ship can be tracked at a distance of 200 miles, and this is, not a little, 370 km. But this is the case if the AIS station is located high above sea level, for example on a mountain, and the ship itself is equipped with a good antenna. Thus, anyone can track a vessel online using the Marinetraffic service.

How to track a ship on the map?

If you have the name of a ship, the easiest way to find out the ship's location is to enter it in the map search and the system will immediately show the ship's position and information about it. If you know that the ship has not yet left a certain port or it could not have gone far from it, you can try to find desired port, in the same search form. And then use the familiar mouse actions to point at all the vessels and view information about them. Also, to make your search easier, you can filter ships by type. For example, select only passenger, fishing or cargo ships. The service is intuitive and if you have the skills to use a map, then finding out the location of the vessel in real time will not be difficult for you.

AIS (AIS Automatic Identification System) is a system that allows you to identify and track online vessel movement with an accuracy of 10 meters. Besides AIS vessel locations provides information about their type, dimensions, destination, speed, expected time of arrival, and makes it possible to familiarize yourself with the history of routes and the expected course. The specified information is presented in a card, to open which you need to click on the object of interest. Online access to AIS of ships provided directly by ships using a radio frequency transmitter. Some ships or ports may not be viewable due to range limitations, interference, or weather conditions affecting radio communications. If " marine traffic” does not display the object you want, please try again later.

Real-time vessel traffic map covers the whole world and provides the user with the opportunity to see their arrangement in various ports and areas of the world. To find ships in other regions and ports, you need to zoom out on the map and select the desired sector.

The Answer-Logistic portal focuses on the current movement and positions of vessels according to AIS in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and the port of St. Petersburg. Note that ship deployment displayed with a slight delay. Find out the time elapsed since last update coordinates, you can by hovering the cursor over an object.

The technology for such monitoring of ship movements is based on a detailed database of received signals about the population following parameters:

— dimensions of the vessel;
— its identification;
— speed and course of movement.

For this purpose, numerous spacecraft have been launched into low-Earth orbit, producing vessel tracking and transmitting the received detailed information ground stations. Dedicated solely to monitoring maritime traffic, today more than 10 orbiters orbit the Earth. As a result of coordinated work satellite systems an interactive map has appeared, with the help of which vessel tracking online has become a common event.

Data is updated in real time, although there may be delays in the transmission/reception of information about the movement of ships within 60 minutes. Such inconsistencies occur in cases where ships leave the reception/transmission area satellite signal. In order to minimize such annoying situations, to help interested countries (those with access to the sea/ocean), space satellites equipped with AIS (AIS automatic identification system, although recently the decoding of this abbreviation has begun to sound like automatic) were created Information system, placing the main emphasis on the role of the information component in the latest space technologies).

The development of the Automatic Identification System in 2000 was driven by the urgent need to reduce collisions among vessels in the world's rapidly expanding fleet. Only ships with a displacement of more than 100 tons increase annually by 3,000 units, and the increase in the number of smaller seaworthy “plankton” has long defied a single statistics.

Intersecting in the vastness of the world's oceans, not all meetings end in safe distance. As a result of practice, it became obvious that such a problem could not be resolved painlessly with conventional radars.

In order to minimize the risk of collision, the International Maritime Organization has mandated the installation of AIS in order to online ship tracking, for the following types of sea transport:

— cargo ships over 500 tons;
— “trucks” on international flights over 300 tons;
— all passenger ships excluding tonnage.

What is the ship's AIS module designed to facilitate vessel tracking? This is a digital VHF transceiver that is connected to navigation and ship systems. Every 2-10 seconds (depending on the speed) or every 3 minutes in parking mode, it transmits the following on-board dynamic information:

— current coordinates;
— navigation (“under the engine in motion”, “at anchor”) status;
— MMSI identifying number;
— speed and course;
— exact time stamp.

In addition to dynamic tags, constantly (but somewhat less frequently, every 6 minutes), which is exactly what is done real-time vessel tracking, static information is transmitted:

— IMO vessel identification number;
- its type and name;
— radio call sign and dimensions;
— type of positioning system (GLONASS, GPS, LORAN);
— information about the route;
— category of cargo and draft;
— presence and number of people on board.

It is also possible to enter text manually if the vessel is in danger.

Automatic identification system when real-time vessel tracking consists of the following components:

— VHF transmitter;
— VHF receiver;
— satellite-global navigation receiver;
— equipment for input/output of information;
— antennas (the mounting height of which is crucial for the reception/transmission range and can reach significant values: from 15-20 to 40-60 miles if there is a base station nearby that increases the visible range).

All received information is displayed on a computer monitor or chartplotter in a graphical version of symbols superimposed on the map, or in the form of a table. In our case, this is marina traffic real-time vessel tracking.

If for some reason the positions of the vessels are not recorded on the map, then it is possible:

- the ship is located away from base station;
— it is not equipped with an AIS system or it is faulty;
— data is hidden for security reasons;
— transponder power is below the required norm.

The sharply increased number of small sea vessels has led to a direct interest of their owners in ensuring their own safety, so equipping a vessel with AIS will make yacht tracking better quality, more mobile and easier.

On the map presented on this page you can observe vessels in real time, tracking in Russian language. Here you can even watch the movement of your own yacht during your cruise along the sea coast - this is very convenient.

June 5, 2015 Written by: Webmaster

MarineTraffic has launched a Google Map displaying real time information about ship/vessel movements throughout the seas similar to VesselFinder .

Marine Traffic is developed as an academic project by the Greek University of the Aegean. It displays real-time AIS ship positions and information about vessel movements.

Data is collected by receiving of Automatic Identification System(AIS) transmissions. IMO requires ships over 300 gross tonnage to install an AIS transponder on board. The transponder transmits vessel position, SOG and COG(speed and course over ground), ship name, ship size and next port of call.

The system is based on AIS (Automatic Identification System). The International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all vessels over 299GT to carry an AIS transponder class A on board, which transmits data on position, speed and course over ground, among some other static information, such as the vessel name, dimensions and voyage details.

Real time vessel tracking by Marine Traffic

MarineTraffic uses this information to plot the real time position of marine vessels on a Google Map. The vessels’ positions are shown on the electronic map in the shape of boats. The tags are colored to show if the vessel is a tanker, passenger vessel, cargo vessel, yacht etc. Clicking on a tag displays information about the vessel and its current destination.

MarineTraffic say they can expand them area of ​​coverage to include any area worldwide. Anyone can install a VHF antenna, an AIS receiver and start immediately sharing data and seeing the vessels onto the map of Marine Traffic.

If you want to find out where and what vessels are located or find the location of a specific vessel in real time, then select the desired quadrant on the map and view the movement of vessels. To find out what kind of ship it is and who it belongs to, just click on the marker you are interested in on the ships map.

More options (if the map above is not available)

→ riverships.ru

Information on Russian river steamers (with photos).

→ shipspotting.com

→ shipsandharbours.com

Find the ship and see its photo.

→ cfmc.ru/positioning

Information about the location of training ships.
Information on the location of vessels is provided based on data from the industry monitoring system (OSM). The positioning time is set to UTC.

→ maritime.com.pl

Information on Polish courts.
Quote:
“The Maritime Shipping section consists of the following modules: Maritime Agencies, Vessel Catalog, List of Regular Lines.
This section contains a list of Polish ships in service, with their full description. In addition to detailed technical data, photographs, illustrations and specifications can be found here. It is possible to find all the information for any vessel by specifying its name, type of vessel, ship owner or technical parameters.”

→ vesseltracker.com

If you want to see a photo of the ship, and brief information about the ship.

→ marinetraffic.com

Website to monitor the vessel in real time

→ containershipregister.nl
search by container name. You can search for a ship by name, by IMO, etc.

→ world-ships.com
In general, search across all courts in the world, but registration is required.

→ solentwaters.co.uk
You can find a ship in real time by name.
Overall a great site.

→ digital-seas.com
The search contains a lot of information on the vessel, photos, descriptions, and upon registration, access to the full database.

→ digital-seas.com
shows a photo of the vessel, brief information about it, current location, ports of call..
registration required

View information and photos on the ships of the shipping company MSC Ships.
Photo super quality!!!