Research Projects on the VTS and Future Developments

Prior to the IMO (2009) e-Navigation initiative, several landmark research projects funded by government agencies such as the European Union have been conducted on the VTS, such as COMFORTABLE, VTMIS-NET, MarNIS, to name a few. The introduction of new technology in the VTS necessitated the need for research in this area to support VTS operators to understand the technical solutions offered by the advanced VTS equipment. Research focus included the adaption of novel solutions to the real-life requirements of the VTS operators.

These projects focused largely on the development of technical tools and solutions for the VTS.

 COMFORTABLE²² – was funded under the 4^th research and technical development framework programme of the European Commission (EC) and ran from 1996 to 1999.

The primary objective of COMFORTABLE was the development of supportive tools for VTS operators which would aid them in recognising and assessing developing traffic situations as well as carrying out risk evaluation. The project consortium consisted largely of technical universities, industry partners and government entities.

The research was largely technologically driven and utilised workshops with end-users to evaluate situational awareness. The key results of the project related to enhancements in the display of traffic situation with integration of VTS and ECDIS, together with collision warnings, prediction capabilities and data sharing functionality. Human factors were considered for the integration of the various solutions developed in the project. The project had not approached the research as a study of work, however it recognised the usefulness of a user-forum as a key resource in the different stages of concept, design, development and testing (Regelink et al. 1999).

 VTMIS-NET²³ – was also funded under the 4^th framework programme of the EC. The main aims of the project included the linking of existing standalone European VTS installations. The linkages would support the establishment of Vessel Traffic

22 COMFORTABLE, online at: http://www.transport-research.info/web/projects/project_details.cfm?id=226

23 VTMIS-NET, online at: http://www.transport-research.info/web/projects/project_details.cfm?id=101

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Management and Information System (VTMIS) networks at the local, regional and European level. Sharing and dissemination of information, including access to pertinent maritime information sources (hydro-meteorological, ship specific information, cargo data, and marine environment pollution information) was crucial for the project. The development of the VTMIS network, its architecture and developing tools for enhancing operations were among the main objectives. The consortium included research institutes, industrial partners, and government authorities including defence research and port authorities. The project had an overtly technical focus. User fora were organised in VTS sites to gauge user requirements (technical and operational). The final report of the project mentions the difficulty in obtaining user requirements due to the attitudes of the end-users. The report notes that end-users are adept at adapting themselves to severe operational and system deficiencies and therefore experience difficulties in the articulation of their needs (VTMIS-NET 2000, p. 14).

 MarNIS²⁴ – Maritime Navigation and Information Services project was funded under EC’s 6^th framework programme and ran for four years from 2004 to 2008. It takes into account EU’s e-Maritime strategy and is in line with IMO’s (2009) e-Navigation. The project sought to introduce a ‘one stop-shop’ to enable ship master’s to seamlessly communicate with diverse stakeholders and authorities and fulfil the different reporting requirements. The project sought to enhance the capabilities of the SAR authorities across Europe with respect to the monitoring of coastal traffic and undertaking anti-pollution measures (Jarvis et al. 2009).

The EU funded projects on the VTS are largely technologically driven and ethnomethodological workplace studies can tremendously benefit these projects; the ethnomethodological approach foregrounds in-situ work and makes technology analysable and can overcome constraints regarding obtaining information from end-users by studying work as a local, situated, embedded and contingent accomplishment, thereby adding value to the design and development of technology which is supportive of work. The fast paced technological developments in the VTS will benefit from an ethnomethodological understanding of how

24 MarNIS, online at: http://www.transport-research.info/web/projects/project_details.cfm?id=11127

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technology features in, and is used to accomplish VTS work. Currently the developments outpace our understanding of in situ work in this area.

The e-Navigation initiative of the IMO (2009) encapsulates both ships and shore based service providers, and calls for the harmonised collection of maritime information – its integration, sharing and exchange, presentation and analysis utilising technology to enhance berth to berth navigation and the provision of related services. Recent VTS research projects such as ACCSEAS²⁵, MONALISA²⁶ and MONALISA 2.0²⁷ have highlighted Sea Traffic Management (STM) through the development of novel e-Navigation solutions for safe and efficient berth to berth navigation, and research has involved studies in simulation environment with test bed regions and integrated novel functionalities such as ‘display of intended route’, ‘shore based route suggestion’, ‘route exchange’, among others (see Bileso 2015).

Further developments in e-Navigation relate to Marine Electronic Highway (MEH) and Fleet Operation Centres (FOC)²⁸. The concept of MEH is utilised in the demonstration project of the IMO²⁹ in the straits of Malacca and Singapore. It aims to link communication facilities of transiting ships to shore based infrastructure of information and communication. The main aims are to enhance service provision and improve the navigation safety, security and environment protection. The marine environmental information is linked to the VTS system and vessel navigational information is also made available. The information sharing and exchange aims to contribute to effective traffic management in the straits utilising the resources of the three littoral states of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The development of an FOC, enables a shipping company to monitor and track its vessels around the world in real time, with the integration of appropriate hardware and software that give access to data of fleet vessels with respect to nautical data, weather reports, cargo loading information etc. which can aid in providing assistance to ships and undertake trouble shooting, if required.

Ship-shore communication is one of the important aspects of the future developments in the e-Navigation initiative (IMO 2009) and my study contributes to our understanding of ship-shore

25 ACCSEAS, online at: http://www.accseas.eu/

26 MONALISA, online at: http://www.sjofartsverket.se/monalisa

27 MONALISA 2.0, online at: http://monalisaproject.eu/

28 FOC example, see: http://www.interschalt.com/software/fleet-operation-center.html

29 MEH, online at: http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Safety/Navigation/Pages/MarineElectronicHighway.aspx

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communication, particularly with respect to the communication undertaken on the marine radio and can inform maritime safety.

In this section, I have mapped the academic landscape with respect to the research on the VTS, research projects on the VTS and future developments in the e-Navigation initiative (IMO 2009). In the following section (2.6), I review pertinent ethnographic studies in merchant shipping, including studies on the human element, which helps to contextualise the maritime transportation sector, of which, my study is a part.