SHIPPOL, towards an Automatic Green House Effect Gases Tracing and Accounting System in Harbour Areas by Using AIS Technology

Abstract

Identification, tracing and monitoring of ships have been widely exploited by means of the Automatic Identification System (AIS). Considerable improvements in safety, collision avoidance and vessel traffic services operations (VTS) have been reached since the system was mandatory in 2002 and applied to ships built on or after 1 July 2002 and to ships engaged on international voyages constructed before 1 July 20021. Nevertheless, the possibility to storage, exchange and exploit dynamic and static information, for other reasons different to those mentioned above, can result in complementary associated phenomena analysis in shipping industry. Because of the possibility to observe and identify a vessel in a specific place and time, dynamic parameters like speed and position can be linked to the identification vessel data services in order to compute real time fuel consumption and therefore, the volume of pollutant gases emissions, providing more precise air pollutants emissions accounting different than the fuel consumption declarations. With this assumption, we have proposed a model which applies identification and speed information from AIS, and in consequence, the type of engines operating during the voyage, extracting data from public EQUASIS databases. With the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), real time and dynamic air pollution data can be computed and mapped in congested waters. Critical infrastructures like ports and its surroundings need other kind of data treatment because of the manoeuvring operations during berthing or piloting, most of them under different consumption conditions in the main engines. The present paper shows our first steps in analysing a suitable mathematical model which fits the three components (earth observation, communications and navigation satellite, airborne and land data acquisition) in air pollution from shipping dynamic mapping. This is our first step to approach to an Automatic Green House Effect Gases Tracing and Accounting System.