Maritime Awareness Systems Performance in the Western Indian Ocean 2014-2015.Results from the PMAR-MASE project
The PMAR-MASE project aimed to provide practical experience to authorities in the Eastern-Southern Africa / Indian Ocean region on wide-area maritime awareness. Data from automatic ship reporting systems (AIS and LRIT) have been received during one year over a large Area of Interest (AOI) in the Western Indian Ocean. The data were used to construct the Maritime Situational Picture (MSP) over the AOI, i.e. the map with the current positions of all reporting ships. The MSP has been served continuously in real time to two operational users in the region, between 15 Sep 2014 and 15 Sep 2015. The data have also been used to make monthly ship traffic density maps. Finally, a number of satellite images have been collected to probe for the presence of ships that are not seen on the reporting systems.
This report assesses the quality (completeness and timeliness) of the ship reporting data and the resulting MSP; it presents the derived monthly ship density maps, split between slow moving and fast moving traffic in order to understand ship activity; and it present results on the fraction of non-reporting ships based on the analysis of the satellite images.
The ship reporting data that were used are AIS data received by up to 16 satellites of four different operators, AIS data from various coastal networks in the region, and LRIT data from the Flags that use the EU LRIT Data Centre (“EU Flags”). Fusing the data from these systems – that amounts to more than 566,000 incoming ship position messages per day
(figures are given here for the month of June 2015) – it is found that on average, a total of 1,522 ships are seen in the AOI on a daily basis. Of those, 11 (0.7 %) are only seen by LRIT, in spite of the fact that LRIT contributes only a tiny 614 position reports per day (0.1 %) on average.
A sampling of the non-reporting ship traffic by satellite imaging has shown that 34 % of the ships detected in satellite radar images are not seen in AIS or LRIT. However, this fraction varies much from one location to another; among the limited locations sampled, it is highest off the Somali coast.
VAN WIMERSMA GREIDANUS Herman;
ALVAREZ ALVAREZ Marlene;
GAMMIERI Vincenzo;
SANTAMARIA SERNA Carlos;
ALESSANDRINI Alfredo;
ARGENTIERI Pietro;
2016-01-20
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC97935
978-92-79-54033-2,
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 27612,
OP LB-NA-27612-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC97935,
10.2788/420868 (online),
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