Real-time vessel locations. Traffic of sea and river vessels

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, which is, not less, 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 the 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.

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!!!

We present to you unique card, with which you can detect the location of any ship in the world's oceans, as well as determine the direction of its movement.

The technology behind the card relies on a network of satellites capable of receiving encrypted Automatic Identification System, or AIS, signals. This system developed specifically for civil navigation and is an encrypted signal transmitted by a ship into orbit. The signal contains basic information not only about the direction of movement of the vessel, but also key data about it - name, type, speed, cargo, destination port, etc. The information received by satellites is transmitted to the ground, where it is automatically processed.

The result of this processing was embodied in an interactive map of vessel movements, which can be seen below.

Interactive map of maritime traffic

Search for a ship by its name

A legend is attached to the map, thanks to which you can determine the type of ship being monitored. Similar data can be obtained by clicking on its icon on the map. You can monitor the movement of ships both in satellite mode and in the mode of overlaying a real image. In addition, if you know the name of the ship, you can find it on the map. To do this, you need to enter the name in the appropriate field on English. If everything is done correctly, the map itself will be centered on the selected ship.
Video instructions for finding ships on the map

Map update

Almost all data shown on the map is updated in real time. It is worth remembering that the speed of a ship on the open sea is relatively slow, so if it seems that the ship is not moving, then perhaps you should just wait. However, the reason for the “freezing” of the ship may not be only this – the AIS satellite network still has “white spots” in the world’s oceans, into which ships periodically fall. In this case, you just need to wait until the ship can communicate with satellites again - its location will be updated.

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 get acquainted 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.

Based on data from AIS. All vessel positions, departure from the port and arrival at the destination port in real time. Attention! The positions of the vessels may sometimes not correspond to the real ones and may lag behind by an hour or more. All coordinates of vessel positions are presented for informational purposes only.

Search data from AIS cannot be used for routing. When searching, you will find accurate information about the movements of ships on the map using AIS data and can view their photographs. In order to find a ship, select a sector on the map, where the number of those located there is indicated. at the moment ships.

We click with the mouse, for example, on the region of Europe and get the picture that you see below. If you zoom in on the area, you will see specific vessels. The map receives updates every few seconds.

When you hover your cursor over a ship, you can see its name; on the site you can get other information you are interested in for searching. To find the ship you are interested in, enter the name of the ship and, if possible, its location in the search bar and press the search key. The AIS map will show the vessel's position in real time.

What is AIS?

To reduce the risk of ship collisions, AIS - Automatic Identification System was developed in 2000. Its functionality turned out to be so successful that just two years later the International Maritime Organization demanded mandatory installation AIS terminals for all cargo ships over 500 gross register tons, for "trucks" over 300 tons on international voyages, and for all passenger ships regardless of tonnage.

Unlike radars, which can detect the appearance of large floating objects near the ship and approximately estimate their current direction and speed of movement, AIS allows you to obtain much more detailed and accurate information about the navigation situation.

To better understand the possibilities new system, first let's figure out how it works.

The ship's AIS module is a digital VHF transceiver associated with ships' navigation systems. Depending on the speed of the vessel, every 2–10 seconds (every 3 minutes when stationary) it automatic mode transmits the next operational information: identification number MMSI, navigation status (“at anchor”, “underway”, etc.), current coordinates, true course and speed, angular rate of turn and precise time stamp.

In addition to dynamic data, static data is transmitted every 6 minutes: the IMO vessel identification number, its type, name, radio call sign, dimensions, type of positioning system (GPS, GLONASS, LORAN) and even the position of its antenna relative to the bow of the vessel. Route information is transmitted at the same frequency: destination with estimated time of arrival, draft, cargo category and number of people on board. In addition, in the event of a threat to the safety of the vessel, it is allowed to send text messages entered manually.

The received information can be displayed on the terminal in the form of a table with information about nearby vessels, as well as in the form of their symbols superimposed on navigation maps(for example, in a chartplotter) - of course, in this case it is much easier to assess the relative position and dynamics of movement.

In short, according to AIS messages, the captain can absolutely accurately assess the current navigation situation. By the way, radio traffic in the system is carried out in the range of 162 MHz, that is, at a much lower frequency compared to radar radiation. Longer radio waves are able to avoid obstacles such as large ships and low islands, and therefore the range of AIS is pleasantly impressive. Under favorable conditions, it can exceed 40 miles, but keep in mind that the height of the antenna here, as with other airborne transmitters, plays a decisive role.

For yachtsmen, at least those whose vessels do not appear in the Forbes magazine charts, the subtlety of using the system lies in the fact that only simplified version terminals, designated “Class B”, are allowed to be installed on ships with a displacement of less than 300 tons.

They feature a noticeably reduced transmitter power (2 W versus 12.5 W), which limits their transmission range to approximately five miles. Another nuisance is a simplified data transmission algorithm that allows you to send information only if there is still air on the air. free space during the radio exchange of older brothers equipped with class A terminals. The trick here is that at any given time, one single block of digital data can be transmitted on any of the two AIS channels, and class A devices are able to agree with each other in advance about the order in which they are issued.

However, you must agree: despite such discrimination, being in a rough sea at night, it is very pleasant to know that on a supertanker passing nearby, the watchman probably knows about the presence of your 45-foot yacht at his side.

There is another way to use AIS, and it involves installing a receiver that does not allow sending any data at all, but is capable of tracking the movements of all ships equipped with full-fledged terminals. By and large, for this even separate device is not required, as manufacturers like Icom and Standard Horizon have begun to include this feature in top models of VHF mountable radios.

Convenient, compact, not expensive, but there is one big “but” - it’s problematic to place even a text table on a small low-resolution screen, let alone build even the most primitive semblance of a map...

This is why AIS receivers have been developed that do not show graphic information, but able to convert data into packets of the standard NMEA protocol, understood by the vast majority of chartplotters. Plus, some of them can connect to computers via USB, or even transfer data to computers via Wi-Fi. mobile gadgets, working under Android control or iOS. Similar devices are produced, for example, by Weather Dock.

By the way, when installing AIS equipment, even in additional antenna there is no absolute need due to working in one frequency range with on-board radio. However, keep in mind that splitters used to connect two antennas different devices, as a rule, the signal level is slightly reduced, and in case of problems with a single antenna, you will lose two security systems at once.

It would be naive to believe that such an advanced information exchange system was created solely to assist helmsmen in operational maneuvering. AIS also includes global monitoring of vessel movements for the benefit of a variety of shipping companies, traffic control centers, and government agencies that may require information about the location of certain vessels or cargo. For this reason, AIS equipment can be based not only on ships, but also on coastal stations, many of which are connected to a global network.

Well, in order to more effectively use the system to search and rescue sailors in emergency situations, emergency buoys are being produced that are capable of transmitting AIS information with high priority. There are also so-called virtual buoys - this is the only type of device in the system, whose real location may not coincide with the coordinates in their messages. As a rule, these are transmitters installed on the shore, warning passing ships of dangers such as poorly visible rocks or capes devoid of lighthouses jutting far out to sea.

It must be said that AIS receivers are even located on satellites. It is only on the surface of the Earth that the radius of propagation of its signal is limited by visibility to the horizon, but in space it can be received from hundreds of kilometers without any problems. Today, more than a dozen spacecraft are orbiting the planet, monitoring maritime traffic.

It’s especially nice that you can get to data on the global movement of ships without being the owner of a shipping company or a secret service agent. Information is available on a paid basis (for example, in full version Google Earth), however, in a somewhat truncated form it can be seen for free, for example, on the resource www.marinetraffic.com, whose interactive maps And user-friendly interface replicated on many other nautical websites.