Persistent Tracking: Vital to Safeguard Shipping in Dark Seas

The ever-worsening geopolitical situation is creating unprecedented challenges for the shipping sector and wider supply chain.

An expanding shadow fleet, openly undertaking illegal Ship-To-Ship (STS) transfers of Russian oil and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), has compounded the longer-standing dark shipping problem that has emerged as a result of illegal activity (people, arms, drugs, contraband and fish smuggling), which not only threatens national security, but also the safety of vessels and heightens concerns regarding environmental disaster and supply chain disruption.

In response, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) issued an Assembly Resolution A.1192(33) in December 2023 urging governments and all related stakeholders to undertake measures to address the shadow fleet. While stakeholders are still predominantly reliant upon Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel tracking, however, the dark ship problem will continue. It is it simply too easy for bad actors to turn off, jam, or spoof AIS tracking.

Enhanced fleet tracking is now a priority that can only be achieved if stakeholders can evolve beyond the simplicity of AIS to a multi-layered tracking model that leverages diverse data sources and real-time analytics to provide the next generation of accurate, trusted vessel positioning.
Capt. Steve Bomgardner, VP – Shipping & Offshore, Pole Star Global, explains how a persistent tracking solution that overcomes the huge gaps in current positioning data is a vital next step in the safeguarding of vessels at sea.

• Global Sanctions

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the global maritime order on which all countries depend to protect global shipping and supply chains, is under untenable strain. The escalating geopolitical uncertainty across the Black Sea / Crimea, South China Sea / Spratly Islands, Red Sea-Gulf of Aden / Yemen, along with the Straits of Hormuz / Iran is seriously undermining this order. Indeed, the rise in attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden is causing ship masters themselves to switch off AIS tracking in a bid to avoid being targeted. 

While this may remove immediate vulnerability to this threat, ships operating without AIS significantly raise the risk of collision, with associated potential loss of life and environmental damage, as well as creating supply chain uncertainty.

The lack of transparency in shipping is now of a global concern to those governments and stakeholders that wish to operate in compliance, creating a world of good actors and bad actors. The shift by Russian oil tankers away from the large open registries to smaller, less diligent flags in response to heightened sanctions from the USA, EU, UK and others, further underlines the complexities facing the IMO and national regulatory bodies attempting to reinstate order.

Fast on the heels of the IMO Assembly Resolution,  the USA issued a Quint Seal Notice from its key regulators later in December 2023 calling on all stakeholders, including vessel owners, charterers, exporters, brokers, shipping companies, freight forwarders, commodities traders, and financial institutions, to assess their risk profiles and implement risk-based compliance programs.

• Persistent Tracking

Whilst the need to improve shipping transparency is a given, solving it is far from straightforward. It is generally outside the capability of a single organisation for reasons of specialisation; involving data selection, aggregation, management / storage, Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML) processing, and overall technical complexity and cost – thus it is best to align with an established specialist application service provider.

The regulatory demand for stakeholders to strengthen and utilise enhanced fleet tracking demonstrates concern over the current limitations of tracking solutions. The ease with which illicit shipping can affect AIS tracking, through switching-off, spoofing and jamming, confirms that this ubiquitous system is not reliable enough to provide the tracking rigour required for today’s maritime security, safety, environmental, and sanctions compliance needs. Continued reliance on AIS alone will compromise attempts at compliance enforcement. The industry now urgently requires a more robust solution that leverages multiple tracking data sources supplemented at times with affordable Earth-Observation (EO) data sources to deliver persistent tracking of every vessel without compromise.

The call for an enhanced compliance focus has highlighted to stakeholders the inherent risks associated with relying solely on AIS tracking. Stakeholders require a far more reliable tracking solution that overcomes AIS vulnerabilities, not only in High-Risk Areas (HRAs) but also in known jamming areas, ports, and high-ship density areas subject to signal contention where tracking information can sometimes be hard to attain or is disrupted.

Persistent tracking overlays multiple vessel tracking services and data sources, including AIS and secure point-to-point satellite tracking systems (Inmarat-C, Iridium, etc.), voyage plans when available, EO-data when relevant, and uses real-time analytics to transform the accuracy and reliability and vessel location data.

• Intelligence-Led Operations

With multiple, layered data sources and robust cross referencing and analysis, the persistent tracking model allows stakeholders to have increased confidence in the true vessel position. Guessing is eliminated and errors associated with false positives are minimised, allowing stakeholders to ensure any anomaly or vessel deviation is immediately identified and notified, and open to investigation.

Multiple, diverse vessel detection technologies feed into live dashboards, providing stakeholders with the essential visibility and control required to confidently locate and manage vessels. By adding the power of predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, stakeholders can gain far more insight into the extent of dark activity and ensure secure, safe, clean, and compliant operations.

• Conclusion

The simplicity of AIS has transformed the accessibility of vessel tracking over the past few decades. But in today’s overcrowded and high-risk seas, that simplicity is now a liability. It is too easy to disable, jam, or spoof AIS signals, creating inconsistencies in vessel track data that allow bad actors to operate unchallenged while genuine vessels’ safety is also compromised. Add in signal blockages caused by the congestion of positions being transmitted and stakeholders increasingly recognise that the gaps appearing in tracking systems globally are creating untenable risk.

From compromised security and loss of life to environmental disaster, supply chain disruption to escalating insurance costs, the lack of visibility across seas globally must be urgently addressed. Proposing additional sanctions and greater risk assessment is a necessary start, but without a persistent tracking solution that can layer multiple tracking data streams to overcome the current information gaps, the maritime industry will continue to incur unacceptable risk.