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Facing heightened security regulations at U.S. ports and waterways, the maritime industry is bolstering its monitoring of commercial ship traffic through its Automated Identification System (AIS), requiring commercial vessels to transmit standard radio signals with key identification and activity information. Originally designed for collision avoidance, and subsequently leveraged to provide real-time visibility to current traffic in ports, AIRSIS, a San Diego-based company, has launched a sophisticated business intelligence and commercial business application using the AIS system as its underlying technology.
For more than 10 years, AIRSIS has been helping customers better navigate the crowded sea of nautical data and regulations. The company’s recently-released hallmark product, PortVision (www.portvision.com), leverages real-time AIS information to provide detail vessel location, historical vessel movement, and comprehensive logs of key vessel activities to improve overall efficiency among a wide array of stakeholders in the maritime industry – from shipping companies to terminal operators to fueling vendors to regulatory and safety agencies. Relying on Google Maps for Enterprise as the foundation for its proprietary solution, PortVision delivers the most comprehensive vessel management tool of its kind.
AIRSIS CEO Dean Rosenberg explains that all commercial ships send out collision avoidance signals, even while they are in port. On a typical day, PortVision processes over a million signals to identify the name, position, and activity of each vessel. Thanks to a simple interface from Google Maps for Enterprise and sophisticated logic interpreting position signals for deeper commercial intelligence, PortVision presents real-time tracking and activity data via user-friendly maps and animation to provide total visibility into the nation’s waterways.
Challenge
Prior to adopting Google Maps for Enterprise, PortVision relied on aging technology that, for example, indicated points on a map with images of cartoon bubbles and, generally, providing static imagery that made it difficult for users to get a broad picture of vessel activity. When the AIRSIS developers wanted to add animation to enhance the product, they found their existing tool would not integrate with any popular animation programs available. Switching to Google Maps for Enterprise was the preferred approach. “We adopted Google Maps because of its ease of use and functionality,” explains Rosenberg. “Google Maps for Enterprise has an extremely flexible API, which integrated into our product seamlessly.”
Solution
By using Google Maps for Enterprise and relying on the extensive Google Maps support community, AIRSIS is offering unsurpassed real-time visualization and historical vessel tracking information for maritime management. While the product’s report generation capabilities are impressive, notes Rosenberg, “It’s the Google user-friendly maps that really capture our customers’ attention.”
By clicking on a specific waterway on a map, for example, maritime personnel can view a detailed report of its activities, its closest ship terminals, and related vessel information for any time of day. “PortVision is basically an integrated data warehouse system with a historic mapping component,” says Rosenberg. Using Google Maps for Enterprise and historical data, AIRSIS can provide playbacks that recreate past events and identifies participants in historical incidents long after the vessels themselves have sailed out of the area.
Results
Google Maps for Enterprise complements PortVision with powerful mapping and scheduling features to facilitate better decision-making for commercial shippers and the commerce they support, particularly the oil industry. The software also features a simple Google-like search engine that lets users search by vessel name, terminal name, call sign, and more. By giving users a dynamic solution to collaborate, analyze data, and accurately track nautical traffic, AIRSIS can more effectively meet industry compliance standards and increase public safety.
About Google Maps for Enterprise
Businesses can create and display their listings for free using Google Maps, attracting qualified prospects. By adding their own data feeds, businesses have full control over the freshness and quality of their content and can manage listings for businesses of any size. Visitors see richer information in geographical context when they are searching for local information. For more about Google Maps, visit https://maps.google.com.
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