Brief Notes On Container Tracking Ship Tracking

By Andy Arde


Container tracking ship tracking is a system enabling the position and status of vessels at sea to be known. This activity is similar to land vehicle fleet management. It is used to achieve similar targets such as dispatching, monitoring of position and traffic assistance. The technology is very useful in managing vessel traffic in congested areas such as harbors and navigational lanes.

The system is basically a way of reporting the position of vessels. It uses a variety of radio technologies in submitting vessel position. The position of the vessel is determined using GPS.

There are three major technologies in use. In coastal areas where line-of-sight VHF reception is possible the main system used is AIS or automatic identification system. The basic components consist of a VHF radio and GPS receivers. The range of transmission of GPS is only 25 nautical miles which limits its use on near-shore ships.

In busy harbors and navigational lanes, AIS is used to supplement radar in avoidance of collision. It is mandatory equipment for most type of vessels especially passenger ships and cargo vessels 300 gross tons or more. AIS data can be displayed over the internet using web-based maps. Those who are interested in the status of cargo should be aware that one of the data types broadcasted by AIS is type of vessel and cargo on board.

When ships are located in the high seas too far away for VHF reception, Long Range Identification and Tracking or LRIT is used. LRIT is mandatory especially for cargo ships 300 gross tons or more. Unlike AIS which relies more on VHF, LRIT is wholly reliant on satellite communications for reporting of position.

The first system used to track ships was based on amateur radio. ARPS or automated packet reporting system transmits vessel identity, heading, speed and position to other ARPS equipped ships. The data circulates in the network until data reaches APRS Internet Gateways. From there on vessel status can be plotted on web-based maps.

Most land based monitoring stations are able to send their data to web servers. These computers use electronic maps to display in near real time the position of ships that are monitored by the stations. There have been concerns on how easy it is to access the positions of vessels in the high seas. It has been said that once the position of high-value ships are shown on maps they become targets of piracy. Proponents of freely accessible web based ship tracking say that ships can simply turn off transmission of position data until the danger has passed.




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