MarineTraffic: Shipping Industry Can Benefit from Open Data

MarineTraffic, a global AIS vessel tracking service, believes that open data can positively increase the competitiveness and efficiency of the shipping industry.

Speaking at the Union for the Mediterranean stakeholder conference, “Towards a Roadmap for Blue Investment and Jobs in the Mediterranean” held on May 27th, in Athens, Marine Traffic Managing Director Demitris Memos explained:

“Activities taking place on the high seas have in the past been almost impossible to monitor. Consequently, it has been difficult for governments and businesses to work out what goes on. The world’s oceans have been and to an extent still are fairly ungovernable places.”

However, according to Memos, companies in the maritime big data area are starting to make sense of sea-borne activity, increasing available knowledge and creating transparency on a global scale.

“Most stakeholders recognise that it is a good thing and will enable better regulation of our oceans and contribute significantly to the shipping industry’s competitiveness,” he added.

Memos believes that a key weakness at the moment is the sheer amount of data being generated.

“This is an issue for the big data industry in general, not just maritime. We need to make better sense of the immense amount of data we have and improve at extracting meaningful knowledge from it. However to do this, more data is needed! To understand causes and effects, data from multiple sources is needed and for this reason, we would encourage open data sharing,” he went on to say.