International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 3

Number 3

September 2009

301

1 INTRODUCTION

The Marine Electronic Highway (MEH) in Straits of

Malacca and Singapore is an innovative marine in-

formation and infrastructure system that integrates

environmental management and protection systems

and maritime safety technologies for enhanced mari-

time services, higher navigational safety standards,

integrated marine environment protection and sus-

tainable development of coastal and marine re-

sources. The key of the MEH is precision navigation

and will utilize a network of Electronic Navigational

Charts (ENCs) in conjunction with Electronic Chart

Display and Information System (ECDIS), Differen-

tial Global Positioning System (DGPS), Internet

Broadband and other maritime technologies

(K.Sekimizu, 2003).

2 PROJECT BACKGROUND AND STATUS

2.1 Background and objectives

Straits of Malacca and Singapore are a historically

important sea route for international and local mari-

time trade as well as being one of the world’s busiest

sea lanes, a unique and rich tropical estuarine envi-

ronment, a major shipping route for petroleum oil

tankers, and one of the highly vulnerable waterways

used for international navigation with a high inci-

dence of marine casualties and oil spills. Geograph-

ically, the Straits extend more than 900 km between

Peninsula of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

The narrowest point is the Philips Channel which is

1.3 nautical miles wide and 23 meters depth. The

Straits have many more chokepoints particularly at

One Fathom Bank and Batu Berhenti. These choke-

points are critically important to the oil and natural

gas trade. Consequently, the large ships of 200,000

ton and above or VLCC have to rush for the channel

during high tide period (Hiroshi Sekine, 2006).

Since 1980s, several initiatives for the Straits

were undertaken, which covered various aspects of

maritime activities, safety of navigation and marine

environment protection. The fruition of those initia-

tives is mainly through the Co-operative Mechanism

on Safety of Navigation and Environment Protec-

tion. Project. Then in late 1990s, the concept of

MEH has been introduced. This new concept having

concerned that the high risk of ship accidents along

the congested water in the Straits.

Safety and security of navigation and environ-

mental protection are the main concern. Therefore

the MEH project aims to provide a practical demon-

stration in the Straits of the potential for digital in-

formation networks that can provide environmental

and related information in real time to both mariners

The Marine Electronic Highway Project in

Straits of Malacca and Singapore: Observation

on the Present Development

M. Hafizi Said & A.H Saharuddin

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia

ABSTRACT: Implementation of the Marine Electronic Highway (MEH) project in Straits of Malacca and

Singapore will complement the efforts taken by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore as littoral states in en-

hancing safety of navigation and the prevention and control of marine pollution in the Straits. The Project

Steering Committee meetings of the MEH indicate that, the progress in the implementation of its activities is

in the midst of many challenging conditions. The efforts is a testament that the littoral states are working to-

gether to ensure the implementation of this project is running smoothly since the donor agencies, user States

and the maritime industry have great expectations on its success. The MEH project consists of four important

components such as Hydrographic Survey and Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) production, Environ-

ment Marine Information Overlays, Baseline Survey and Information Technology Structure. This paper will

address the current status of the implementation of the four key components highlighting the development of

ENCs as a vital tool to sustain the safety of navigation along the straits. The discussion in this paper is based

on some preliminary survey findings and from reports of the Project Steering Committee meetings.

302

transiting the Straits as well as other agencies and in-

terested parties. The Project includes obtaining high-

quality hydrographic surveys of some of the most

limiting depth areas in the Straits, the development

of ECDIS compatible with Marine Information

Overlays (MIOs), the establishment of a unified data

centre to provide real time information and updates,

and the establishment of a number of environmental

monitoring stations including tide gauges and cur-

rent meters.

The MEH was designed in two main stages

namely demonstration and full scale. Demonstration

project will cover parts of the Straits, mainly the ar-

ea of the Traffic Separation Scheme. The second

stage or full-scale project, which will follow after

this initiative, will cover the whole Straits including

the coastal waters of the Littoral States. The demon-

stration stage aims to show how environmental data

related to the Straits, such as the nature and extent of

environmentally sensitive areas can be accessed by

the relevant authorities using a common database;

how new or revised routing instructions or prohibit-

ed areas can be broadcast to ships taking part in the

demonstration; and how Mariners can receive other

environmental information such as real-time tidal

observations, tidal streams, sea conditions and wind,

in ECDIS via MIOs.

2.2 MEH Time line

Table 1.The MEH Progress (Hartmut Hesse, 2008)

___________________________________________________

Important Event Date

___________________________________________________

Established Project Management office May, 2007

at Batam, Indonesia

Project Steering Committee Meeting 29-31 May 2007

– Batam, Indonesia

Hydrographic survey bidding October 2007

Bid evaluation report January 2008

Technical Committee on Survey and 14-15 April 2008

ENCs meeting at Penang, Malaysia.

Project Steering Committee Meeting 3-5 June 2008

– Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Full demonstration phases Expected Mid

of 2009

___________________________________________________

3 MEH KEY COMPONENTS

During the 2

Project Steering Committee Meeting

at Kuala Lumpur, the member considered four key

components, namely the hydrographic survey, ENCs

production, the Environment Marine Information

Overlays (E-MIO) and the Information technology

structure and data centre. The current statuses of the-

se components are presented in the Table 2.

Outcome of the 1

Technical Committee Meeting

held in Penang, Malaysia from 14-15 April 2008, the

members had agreed that to reduce the scope of the

survey to the prioritized areas as shown in Table 3.

Having considered Area 1 of the Traffic Separation

Scheme (TSS) as the most important of the 8 priori-

tized areas, the Meeting agreed that Area 1 met the

holistic objective of the MEH project and therefore

should be surveyed. This area is from One Fathom

Bank to Tanjung Piai with an area of 621.28 km

14.38% of the prioritized areas as its first priority for

survey.

Table 2. The current status of the MEH main components.

MEH Main

Component

Current Status

Remarks

Hydrograph-

ic survey

and Elec-

tronic Navi-

gational

Charts

(ENCs) pro-

duction.

Hydrographic

survey activity

has been in the

pipeline for over a

year, including

the tendering as-

pect, which has

rejected due to in-

sufficiency funds.

Reduction of scope of

service (SOS) areas

based on the eight (8)

prioritized areas (refer

to Table 3), beginning

with Area 1. The addi-

tional areas will be

considered options and

may be surveyed sub-

ject to availability of

funds.

Ongoing negotiations

with contractor.

Environment

Marine In-

formation

Overlays.

(E-MIO)

The Terms of

References (TOR)

for the E-MIO

consultancy had

agreed during 2

PSC Meeting,

June 2008 in Kua-

la Lumpur

The dynamic E-MIO

data within the Straits

agreed as bellow:

Dynamic tide data.

Real time notification

of new restricted areas

and routes.

Real time environmen-

tal monitoring (such as

wind, current and

temperature.

Information

Technology

structure and

database

centre.

The fundamental

principle of MEH

Data System had

been presented by

IT consultant dur-

ing TC-SIF meet-

ing in September

2007 in Singa-

pore.

The MEH Data system

was based on Data

format (open format

using xml format file),

Security of data (SSL

protocol), Reliability

(redundancy of all

servers), Scalability

and Sustainability.

Table 3. The Estimate Cost for 8 Prioritized Areas (Report of

Project Steering Committee Meeting– Kuala Lumpur, Ma-

laysia, 2008).

___________________________________________________

Survey No# of KM

Estimated Estimated

area Ship Wrecks cost(bid)/ days(ops)

USD

___________________________________________________

Area 1 5 621.28 2,754,719 44.32

Area 2 2 140.15 584,548 14.67

Area 3 3 127.83 712,155 19.93

Area 4 0 10.65 163,966 2.65

Area 5 5 85.59 241,569 5.79

Area 6 2 33.61 173,315 3.02

Area 7 0 47.23 824,155 25.09

Area 8 2 279.91 824,155 25.09

Total 19 1,346.2 6,278,582 140.56

___________________________________________________

303

4 ENC AND E-NAVIGATION

4.1 ENC production

Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems

(ECDIS) embraced the entire navigation system and

have made it possible to concurrently address mari-

time safety and environmental protection manage-

ment both at sea and ashore. However, in order to

produce precise of charts, data and information

needs to be made available. The mandatory carriage

of ECDIS seem to be enforced, with reports from

IMO’s NAV54 subcommittee meeting confirmed

that members have reached a consensus in favour of

making the technology a required fit for ocean going

vessels especially in highly traffic and congested

water like Straits of Malacca and Singapore (Digital

Ship, 2008). In view of that, the development of

ENC and the require infrastructure have to be expe-

dited.

According to the report from Singapore repre-

sentatives during 2

Project Steering Committee

Meeting in Kuala Lumpur (2008), the latest edition

of Singapore ENC consists of 14 cells and is pro-

duced in accordance with the IHO S-57 Edition 3.1

specifications. The Singapore ENC covers Singa-

pore Waters and its approaches. It contains chart in-

formation necessary for safe navigation and supple-

mentary information in addition to those in the paper

charts. Monthly incremental of Singapore ENC up-

dates are available over the Internet as well as

through appointed ENC distributors.

4.2 E- Navigation Strategy

Precision navigation shall be the backbone of the

MEH upon which all the technological platforms

would be integrated commencing with the ENCs-

ECDIS. Precision navigation consists of onshore,

sea based and ship-based facilities from which in-

formation and data flow into the network. Such fa-

cilities include transponders such as an Automatic

Identification System (AIS ) and onboard access to

the Internet or broadband (K.Sekimizu, 2004). With

AIS, real time information can be automatically pro-

vided to or received from appropriately equipped

shore facilities or other ships. With enhanced AIS,

hydrographical and oceanographic data including

weather conditions can be transmitted or received,

thereby facilitating ship movement, particularly in

restricted or congested waterways as well as during

inclement conditions (Digital Ship, 2008). Currently,

AIS is mainly for basic ship information exchange.

In addition to acquiring, managing and achieving

data in digital form, it is now apparent that common

protocols necessary for optimum data transfer and

sharing. Hence, the Littoral States’s VTS and the

MEH Data Center in Batam (Indonesia) need to use

identical database software as a database engine to

achieve the desires functionality. Currently, Singa-

pore and Malaysia VTS use ORACLE 10g. Howev-

er, Indonesia has not yet built its VTS and could eas-

ily use the same platform.

However, future developments may include other

relevant information such as weather data. AIS or

similar facility, information flow could be real time,

forecast, archived data, and monitoring/time lag da-

ta. The presence of a network of meteorological cen-

ters such as the South East Asian Centre for Atmos-

pheric and Marine Prediction (SEACAMP) could

provide higher resolution local weather conditions or

forecasts that could be transmitted through the AIS

allowing mariners to evaluate the weather conditions

along their route. All of these strategies and technol-

ogies will be designed in order to achieve the aim of

MEH as stated below:

− Facilitate vessel traffic monitoring and manage-

ment,

− Facilitate communication and data exchange,

− Improve efficiency of transport and logistics,

− Effective operation of contingency, response and

SAR,

− Provide human-machine interface, and

− Manage user workload and support decision mak-

ing.

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Towards A Successful End Product

Based on the current status of the MEH project it is

obviously indicated that the progress in the imple-

mentation of its activities is in the midst of many

challenging conditions. According to Sally Burning-

ham (2008) from World Bank in Jakarta, the MEH

project has been under implementation with fund

available since June 2006 but very little of the funds

had been disbursed. Despite of this, the project actu-

ally needs more fund and strategies in order to ac-

complish. Thus, some of necessary steps to ensure

success and expedite the MEH project shall include:

− Ensuring financial sustainability.

Financial sustainability will only be achieved

through an overall commitment of the govern-

ments of the respected countries, the oil and gas

major transporters, fishing and shipping interests.

Therefore, the US $8.68 million which provided

by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is

not sufficient enough due to certain escalations in

cost in some elements of the Project (Ahmad,

2008). In addition, without extra fund from other

parties or sponsors the MEH Projects encounter-

ing difficulties in adhering to the original scope

and plan.

Based on the suggestion made by Sasakawa

304

(2007), he issues an invitation to the Straits user

to agree to a voluntary payment of US 1 cent per

ton for every vessel that transit through the

Straits. Since annually more than 4 billion tons of

cargo that passes through the Straits, these would

raise 40 million dollar a year. This amount would

more than enough to eliminate the excessive bur-

den by the Littoral states (B.A Hamzah, 2008).

− Cooperative mechanism between littoral states

and other straits user.

In November 2004, the IMO Council at its 93

meeting considered that the Straits of Malacca

and Singapore as specific and vital shipping lane.

Following that decision, in September 2006, three

littoral states (Malaysia, Indonesia and Singa-

pore) together with Japan and other industry rep-

resentatives such as INTERTANKO and ICS had

developed the Cooperative Mechanism for main-

taining safety of navigation and environmental

protection of the Straits.

Subsequently, the industry and other Straits user

are encouraged to participate in the Cooperative

Mechanisms by making voluntary contributions

to the Aids of Navigation Fund or either partici-

pating in the Cooperation Forum (R.Beckman,

2008). As major beneficiaries of safe and secure

passage through the Straits, fairness and justice

dictate that industry and other users should partic-

ipate in the Cooperative Mechanisms.

− Involving public, private sector and academics

stakeholders.

Reference in Article 43 of UNCLOS to user

States does not preclude participation by industry

or other private sectors. This Article avoids the

legal problems that would arise if the Littoral

States established mandatory tolls or charges.

However, the private sector does not need to jus-

tify burden sharing and to undertake Corporate

Social Responsibility (CSR) just because the Ar-

ticle 43 omits mention of the private sector. This

is because cooperation in promoting common

good is requiring under international law. Thus,

the CSR role of the private sector especially for

oil major companies and shipping interest should

go beyond monetary contribution. The concept of

CSR dictates that the private sector should recog-

nised the shared responsibility to ensure safe and

secure passage through vital international ship-

ping lanes.

Beside that, scholars, academia, researchers and

scientist from universities and institutions are en-

couraged to share idea, research finding and con-

sultation on issues of common interest in the

Straits. In recognizing the role they could play,

the Littoral States and the MEH Project Steering

Committee (PSC) should facilitate the concrete

and practical cooperation methods. In this re-

spect, the cooperation forum will be useful plat-

form for the Littoral states and PSC to gather

feedback. In addition, some fund should be allo-

cated for research grant in order to make fruition

of information through research finding.

5.2 Conclusion

The establishment of MEH Project is significantly

important to the maritime industry. The efforts

through Cooperative Mechanism and actively partic-

ipated in PSC meeting are the testament that the lit-

toral states and other stakeholder are working to-

gether to ensure the implementation of this project is

running smoothly since the donor agencies, user

States and the maritime industry have great expecta-

tions on its accomplishment.

REFERENCES

Ahmad. (2008). Government of Malaysia Report for 2

Project

Steering Committee Meeting at Kuala Lumpur, June 2008.

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papers: Verifying The Co-Operative Mechanism On The

Strait Of Malacca And Singapore- From Viewpoint Of User

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Digital Ship. (2008), IMO agrees on Mandatory ECDIS, Au-

gust Edition p.1-2

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Project Steer-

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