International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 1
Number 3
September 2007
251
Operational Status of Polish AIS Network
W. Drozd, M. Dziewicki, M. Waraksa & L. Bibik
Maritime Office in Gdynia, Poland
ABSTRACT: This paper is the report on operational and legal status of the Polish AIS network established by
Polish Maritime Administration. Existing structure of base stations, telecommunication network as well as
current radio coverage within a Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) area is described [2]. Authors present the
current status and practical operational applications of the AIS-PL to control a marine traffic within the area of
responsibility of Maritime Safety Centre in Gdynia and/or VTS Gulf of Gdansk.
1 BACKGROUND
Polish national AIS network was established during
a period of 2002-2006 in response to requirement of
Copenhagen Declaration signed by Baltic countries
in September 2001, which was followed by EC
decision expressed in Directive EU 2002/59/EC.
Maritime Office in Gdynia was appointed by
ministry of maritime administration to be a
coordinator of the Polish project and became the
member of international HELCOM AIS EWG
(Expert Working Group). As a result, the first
effectively working international AIS network
consisting of 10 national systems was created with a
common server and database in Copenhagen. All
regulatory issues, such as data formats and
FATDMA distribution plan were solved according
to IALA guidance and ITU-R standard [1]. The
Agreement on data standard and data distribution
principles was signed. Finally, HELCOM network is
the primary source of information about SOLAS
ships traffic on Baltic area, consisting of about 110
AIS base stations delivering data from 3000 ships
every 6 minutes.
Fig. 1. AIS-PL shore base station coverage area (worst case
scenario) [3]
2 AIS-PL SYSTEM LAYOUT
Polish AIS system (AIS-PL) consists of 11 land
based (8 marine and 3 inland) stations linked via
national server to the HELCOM network. Although
stations spatial distribution was designed to
broadcast VHF signals in A1 zone, the whole Polish
responsibility area is not permanently covered
(Fig. 1).
252
Required levels of system performance were
established in order to satisfy traffic surveillance and
maritime safety requests. There is evidence that
effective AIS coverage depends on propagation
conditions due to weather and pressure. However,
anomalous propagation, which results in extended
VHF range, is relatively rare. There are days when
single station range increases from 35 to 200 miles
and the opposite side of Baltic is accessible. Major
traffic regions, such as VTS Gulf of Gdansk and
VTMS Pomeranian Bay, were designed to have extra
coverage redundancy in case of system outages or
poor propagation. For that purpose, there are
alternative base stations and additional
communication links. Stations names and respective
positions were listed in Table I:
Station
name
Lat Long MMSI
Antenna
height
[m]
Szczecin 54
o
26'N 14
o
35'E 2610700 22
Police
54
o
34'N
14
o
35'E
2611800
64
Świnoujście
54
o
55'N
14
o
17'E
2610800
43
Kikut
53
o
58'N
14
o
34'E
2614800
95
Niechorze
54
o
05'N
15
o
03'E
2614700
65
Gąski
54
o
14'N
15
o
52'E
2614500
50
Jarosławiec
54
o
32'N
16
o
32'E
2614400
51
Czołpino 54
o
33'N 17
o
13'E 2614300 75
Rozewie
54
o
50'N
18
o
20'E
2614200
85
Hel
54
o
36'N
18
o
49'E
2611700
33
Krynica
Morska
54
o
23'N 17
o
27'E 2614100 53
Most of the network can be controlled from
Maritime Safety Centre in Gdynia (MSC) where also
a real-time database of AIS-PL has been created.
Data from the system is being distributed to
authorized institutions only such as Maritime
Administration, Polish Boarder Guard, Navy or SAR
centre.
3 NETWORK TOPOLOGY
Base stations are connected trough a wide area
network to three regional servers located in Maritime
Offices in Szczecin, Slupsk and Gdynia respectively
[Fig. 2]. Depending on local circumstances, they use
several transmission media: wired lines (copper,
fibre optics links) and/or wireless (GPRS,
microwave E1 links).
Fig. 2. AIS-PL data flow
Regional servers are connected to a national
server in MSC Gdynia where also an international
server of AIS-PL and database server are installed .
Ships AIS data transmissions, received by shore
stations after data processing in regional servers, are
sent to the national server – where they are
integrated into one AIS-PL data stream to be sent to
external authorities or local applications (e.g.
GateHouse Statistics, AIS Display, Adveto,
MarSSIES). AIS-PL data stream is down sampled in
international server before being sent to the
HELCOM server (Copenhagen, Denmark). There
data from Poland is integrated with other AIS
streams from Germany, Denmark, Russia, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.
Finally, the data stream is delivered back to all
HECOM members and Norway.
AIS-PL real time and HELCOM sampled data
packets are stored in database server for traffic
management, statistics, track plotting, post
processing studies or evidence proceedings. Stored
data is periodically backed up onto a tape storage
system.
The whole system is protected by several
firewalls. Additionally – data transmission from/to
HELCOM server is encrypted for security reasons
by Secure Socket Layer protocol.
4 AIS IN VESSEL TRAFFIC SERVICES
Radar was the most important and basic sensor in
VTS, but AIS introduction is a new tool used for the
Vessel Traffic Monitoring especially outside the
VTS Gulf of Gdansk area. System MarSSIES –
Maritime Safety and Security Information Exchange
System is used in Poland for the purpose of traffic
monitoring and exchange of safety and security
related information. The MarSSIES became also one
of display software of the AIS data, both from
National and HELCOM networks.
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Fig. 3. HELCOM coverage area
Polish Maritime Administration, Customs, Polish
Navy, Coastguard, Crisis Centres are those
authorized users for whom AIS data is available on
the local and central levels. AIS Display based on
ENC is an important module in the system which
gives VTS and other allied services access to the
comprehensive traffic overview. Referring to duties
of the VTS Gulf of Gdansk and Maritime Safety
Centre, AIS data became the crucial tool in crisis
management at sea, maritime office fleet
management supports pollution combating
operations, polluter tracing or SAR operations co-
ordination. Not only does it give a detailed historical
track of the vessels but it also serves as a data source
for statistical analysis. For example the traffic
assessment of the commonly used routes within
Polish Sea Areas was based and conducted on the
AIS data and VTS statistics.
Due to the fact that some of the static or voyage
related AIS data might be incorrect, VTSO (Vessel
Traffic Service Operator) workload has been
extended. The most commonly detected errors were:
incorrect or not updated destination, incorrect
spelling of the destination, not updated navigation
status. Vessels are requested by VTS to correct data
according to IALA VTS22/05-549 recommendation
on 05 September 2005. In case of the outbound
vessel with incorrect position, her destination port
and transit countries’ authorities should be notified.
VTS performs a very close co-operation with Port
State Control in this matter. VTS authority estimates
that about 20-30% of vessels with at least one of the
AIS data incorrect elements enter Polish Ports.
General benefit of the AIS in VTS has improved
detection and identification of the AIS vessels.
Additionally, communication and reporting
procedures were reduced due to the content of AIS
static and voyage related data, while safety related
messages are used very seldom. AIS along with
radar data have become a major part of the national
traffic monitoring system. Safety of the vessels
equipped with AIS transponder has considerably
been improved thanks to the total coverage of the
AIS on the Baltic Sea. VTS and Traffic Monitoring
Services are also looking forward for fishing vessels
over 15 meters to be equipped with AIS
transponders according to new UE regulations.
Thanks to this legislation VTS, SAR and Coastguard
services will receive a comprehensive traffic
overview which may be treated as an initial step
towards new e-Navigation idea.
Fig. 4. AIS and radar echoes integrated in one screen
5 CONCLUSIONS
− AIS-PL is operational in A1 zone.
− Existing network should be based on unified fibre
optics links.
− There is a need to set-up a new database which
would consist of AIS real-time data.
− Future e-NAV requires farther AIS and radar data
integration.
− AIS data became the main source of information
for traffic analysis, FSA and evidence purposes
REFERENCES
Recommendation ITU-R M.1371-1, “Technical Characteristics
for a Universal Shipborne Automatic Identification System
using Time Division Multiple Access in the VHF maritime
mobile band."
http://www.helcom.fi - Helsinki Commission website
“Koncepcja budowy krajowej sieci stacji bazowych AIS”-
prepared by ELECOM , Instytut Łączności Oddział
Wrocław, 08/2004
