Near real-time online display of global marine traffic
The http://www.marinetraffic.com website is part of an academic, open, community-based project. It provides free real-time information to the public, about ship movements and ports.
This web site is part of an academic, open, community-based project. It is dedicated in collecting and presenting data which are exploited in research areas, such as:
- Study of marine telecommunications in respect of efficiency and propagation parameters
- Simulation of vessel movements in order to contribute to the safety of navigation and to cope with critical incidents
- Interactive information systems design
- Design of databases providing real-time information
- Statistical processing of ports traffic with applications in operational research
- Design of models for the spotting of the origin of a pollution
- Design of efficient algorithms for sea path evaluation and for determining the estimated time of ship arrivals
- Correlation of the collected information with weather data
- Cooperation with Institutes dedicated in the protection of the environment

It provides free real-time information to the public, about ship movements and ports, mainly across the coast-lines of Europe and N.America. The project is currently hosted by the Department of Product and Systems Design Enginnering, University of the Aegean, Greece. The initial data collection is based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS). We are constantly looking for partners to take part in the community. They will have to install an AIS receiver and share the data of their area with us, in order to cover more areas and ports around the world.
How the vessels positions are recorded?
The system is based on AIS (Automatic Identification System). As from December 2004, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all vessels over 299GT to carry an AIS transponder on board, which transmits their position, speed and course, among some other static information, such as vessel’s name, dimensions and voyage details.
References:
IMO: http://www.imo.org/Safety/mainframe.asp?topic_id=754
Above is excerpt from: http://marinetraffic.com/ais/faq.aspx?level1=160
Visit live ships map: http://marinetraffic.com/ais/
