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Integrated Maritime Safety & Surveillance systems Integrated Maritime Data Environment (IMDatE) platform = EMSA capability to provide real time integrated maritime information services

Marin Chintoan-Uta Head of Unit -Satellite based monitoring services European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) Lisbon, Portugal [email protected]

Abstract. Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is defined as the effective understanding of anything associated with maritime activities that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of the sea. So far, the MDA was achieved at National level through various monitoring systems which can detect, identify and track the activities and incidents occurring in their area of interest. However, maritime activities are cross-border activities carried out on the open seas which stretch along the coastline of many neighboring countries. A complete maritime picture, at European level where neighboring countries share the same maritime interests, provides added value for a better MDA. Since 2009, the European Union (EU) has initiated the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP), an ambitious project of managing maritime domain activities in a holistic manner. A pillar of the IMP is the Integrated Maritime Surveillance (IMS). The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), the technical maritime body of the EU, has managed to develop a powerful and flexible operational platform called Integrated Maritime Data Environment (IMDatE), a state-of-the-art ICT set-up using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Integrated Product Development (IPD) approach. This paper presents how IMDatE have been developed and the new paradigm it brings into the maritime surveillance domain and associated governance.

1 MARITIME SURVEILLANCE BACKGROUND The traditional method of maritime surveillance is to detect targets in the area of interest by means of radar equipment and then to correlate detected targets with information provided by the ship tracking mandatory reporting systems to build the image of cooperative targets (those that are identifying themselves) and non-cooperative targets (those which cannot be identified by mandatory reporting means). Development of the associated systems (radar coastal stations, Automatic Identification Systems, Vessel Monitoring Systems, etc) was mainly done individually under the coordination of the responsible authority, with minimum focus on coordinated or integrated approach. This was the operational maritime surveillance philosophy implemented both at National and EU level in the last 30 years. Things started to change 5 years ago, when a new approach was defined and promoted, both by politicians and technicians – the integrated maritime surveillance approach. This paper describes EMSA’s transition process from developing stand-alone maritime monitoring systems to developing and integrated maritime surveillance platform.

Marin CHINTOAN-UTA « EMSA IMDatE »

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EMSA was set-up in 2002 to support the improvement of maritime safety, security and environmental standards in Europe. One of the core operational tasks assigned to the Agency was to develop and operate maritime information capabilities at EU level. The systems developed so far are (more information available at www.emsa.europa.eu): • SafeSeaNet (SSN) – is the European network of over 700 shore-based stations which collect the signals from the on-board Automatic Identification System (AIS) of all ships navigating within 100 Nautical miles (Nm) from the EU coastline, allowing real-time tracking of coastal navigation. In addition of AIS position signal, the system also receives stores and exchange information concerning the cargo and voyage of vessels trading between EU ports. SSN provides what we call the “EU short-range” ship monitoring system, as illustrated in figure 1 below:

Fig. 1 – SafeSeaNet – the EU short range ship traffic system •

CleanSeaNet (CSN) – is the EU satellite-based system for detection of oil spills and vessels at sea using Satellite Aperture Radar (SAR) images. Over 2000 images are processed every year to monitor the level of spills within EU waters. It is the most performing satellite service of the world as it provides an alert report to the end-user within maximum 30 minutes after the acquisition of the SAR image. The report contains the position and extent of detected spill together with all ships detected in that area. This is important to enable the authorities to react in near-real time against polluters. The systems detects hundreds of spills every year, as illustrated in figure 2 below:

Fig. 2 – CleanSeaNet – EU oil spills picture

Marin CHINTOAN-UTA « EMSA IMDatE » •

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EU LRIT DC – is the European Long Range Identification and Tracking Data Centre using communication satellites to track all ships under EU flags all over the world, as well as any ship, irrespective of its flag, within a maximum 1,000 Nm from the EU coastline. This is the “EU long range” ship monitoring system providing a world-wide tracking capability (blue colour) complementary to SSN (red colour) as illustrated in figure 3 below:

Fig. 3 – Long range (blue) and short range (red) ship tracking systems •

THETIS – is a web-based network linking together all Port State Control officers in Europe, providing updated information on the safety risk profile of ships calling at EU ports. Whilst not being a ship tracking system, THETIS adds valuable information on the safety standards and risk profile of a ship.

2 EMSA INTEGRATED MARITIME DATA ENVIRONMENT The EU Integrated Maritime Policy requires “steps towards a more interoperable surveillance system to bring together existing monitoring and tracking systems used for maritime safety and security, protection of the marine environment, fisheries control, control of external borders and other law enforcement activities” (EU IMP, 2007). The following sections describe how EMSA is implementing this requirement. 2.1 Starting point Over the last 10 years EMSA has developed the four maritime information systems described in section 1. Each system was developed independently, serving a specific purpose and user community, having its own technology and infrastructure approach. In parallel, a similar system has been developed at EU level under the coordination of the European Fishery Control Agency (EFCA) for the monitoring of fishing vessels. The system is called Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and is very much similar with the LRIT system as it also uses satellite communication equipment. There was little to none coordination on development and operation of these systems and very limited sharing or data exchange from one system to another. Even the common users of all systems still have to use 4 different interfaces to get the data they were entitled to use.


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2.2 The challenge My challenge was twofold – technical and political. Specifically, I was asked to design, develop and implement an integrated operational approach aiming to achieve: 

Technical capability to integrate and correlate maritime information from internal and external systems into a single coherent complete maritime picture;

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Harmonisation of technical and operational standards and procedures (data format, user management, standardised interfaces, communication protocols and hosting environment);

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New governance model supporting data sharing on the need-to-know, responsibility-to-share principle promoted by the EU IMP;

2.3 IMDatE - achievements to the date The project started early 2011 and the first year was mainly focused on detailing and clarifying the technical specifications, evaluating available technology and designing the system architecture. Second year (2012) was the year of technical development and upgrading whilst the 2013 is dedicated to operational testing and delivery of sustainable services. The guiding principle of the project was to move from the existing operational status of stand-alone systems delivering individual services towards a flexible service-oriented approach, where users can access a portfolio of services without the burden of being involved in the technical details of the system(s). Using the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design, OGC (Open Geographical Consortium) standards and standard web-services (XML, SOAP, WMS, WFS) we have reconverted the existing systems into modules of a horizontal platform where services can be designed and data integrated through various combinations of existing resources. This was a complex process involving Concurrent Engineering (CE) and agile software development approach for Integrated Product Development (IPD) (David Rainey, 2008). It was an iterative process of collecting user requirements, propagating early conceptual designs, running computational models, creating prototypes, developing and delivering products, testing and re-analyzing needs and performance, incremental development and restarting the full cycle considering new governance, funding, work force capability and priorities from one year to another. The high level architecture of resulting integrated platform is presented in Figure 4 below:

Service A Blue Belt

IMDatE

Service B VTS

Service C Anti-piracy

Service D New

Service Configuration Platform

Oracle Service Bus (OSB) – Structured Data Exchange

Fig. 4 – IMDatE high level architecture diagram


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The main novelties introduced by the IMDatE consist of: 

Building Common Registries (databases) to enable all systems to use the same reference data for ship identification, geographical locations, ports and areas;

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Harmonizing data exchange interfaces through standard OGC web-services;

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Introducing an enterprise bus (OSB) and a Common Data Format (CDF) converter to enable translation of various data formats into a unique format for data correlation and integration;

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Developing high performing Data Fusion Module (DFM), able to process, correlate and integrate millions of ship position reports within real time performance;

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Introducing the concept of Service Portfolio supported by a technical - Service Configuration Platform (SCP) - enabling set-up and adjustment of specific services through combination of existing resources;

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Common User Management Console – a tool for centralized creation and management of all users, including associated data access rights;

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State-of-the-art data visualization and distribution capability, either via customized webbased interface (including 3-D and mobile access) or direct system-to-system interface;

Due to the limited space of this communication paper, I will further detail only the DFM and data distribution aspects. 2.5 Data Fusion and Visualisation The IMDatE DFM is a three-dimensional capability which handles a) high volume and amount of data, b) at very high speed (real-time) and c) coming from a range of sources in a variety of formats (“3V” - Gartner, 2012). More than 20,000 ships are navigating within EU waters every single day. These ships provide automatic position reports at variable frequency ranging from every 6 minutes (AIS) to every 6 hours (LRIT). This means the DFM should be able to handle over 5 million messages per day. The ship position reports are collected using different means, i.e. shore AIS receiving stations, detection of AIS by satellite, communication satellite networks (INMARSAT, IRIDIUM), mobile radio/VHF platforms, each source having its own particular data format and transmission technology. In addition of ship position information, IMDatE handle other types of data, such as ship, cargo and voyage information coming from mandatory reporting systems, satellite imagery products (radar and/or optical images of very high volume), video-streams from on-site assets, other information coming from user own systems. As IMDatE provides services supporting real-time monitoring of maritime traffic, all this wide range of high volume data needs to be processed as soon as any new data comes in and the updated maritime picture made available to the end-user immediately after processing is completed. So far, the IMDatE has achieved 99% availability whilst processing 100 position reports per second. The chosen formats and technologies include the IVEF (Inter-VTS Exchange Format IALA Recommendation V-145, 2011) interface for ship position data exchange and processing, the OSB and Kalman Filter algorithms (Greg Welch and Gary Bishop, 2006) for data fusion, XML format for the CDF and WFS and WMS web service interfaces. Data-push or call-and-request mechanisms are working in parallel to match different data exchange needs. Another demanding task was to design a data distribution and visualization platform able to meet simultaneous requirements for different data streams and visualization symbols. Both system-tosystem (S2S) and Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) were developed, including a library of visualization back-grounds and symbols (electronic charts, Google maps, IALA symbols, etc). WebGL technology is used to support 3D visualization. The SOA approach was used as well in designing and developing the data visualization capabilities, giving the user access to a range of data layers which he can choose to customize its own maritime picture as he needs. This facility is very much appreciated by end-users as they can add or remove data layers as it fits to their operational needs.


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2.6 EMSA = a centre of applied research Science is dedicated to managing and increasing knowledge of general validity, and basic research is its dynamic element. The role of politics is to produce agreement, decisions and collective action. Applied science can roughly be understood as the area of intersection between science and politics. It depends highly on advanced scientific knowledge and methods but is dedicated to the solution of practical economic, social and political problems rather than the further development of such knowledge and methods (Nils Roll-Hansen, 2008). EMSA was set-up as a scientific and technical resource centre to assist EU MSs in improving maritime safety and environmental standards. As such, EMSA results are measured by the effective delivery of value added products and services aligned to above mentioned objective. EMSA evolution and achievements in its 10 years lifespan provide objective evidence on the quality and volume of the applied research it has produced. SafeSeaNet, the first regional AISbased ship traffic monitoring system, was designed and technical specifications defined by EMSA maritime and ICT experts and implemented by external contractors under close monitoring and supervision of the Agency. The CleanSeanet, even after 5 years since going live, is still the world most advanced satellite-based oil spill system in terms of operational performance (30 minutes acquisition, processing and delivery time). With the IMDatE project, EMSA is pioneering the delivery of real-time integrated maritime services using in-house expertise and know-how to define and deliver operational solutions. Many integration projects of maritime information services have been started at EU and worldwide level in the last 10 years, trying to define the best approach for developing a common and complete maritime picture, such as: MARSUNO - Pilot project on Maritime Surveillance in the Northern Sea Basins; BLUMASSMED - Pilot project on Integration of Maritime Surveillance in the Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic approaches; PERSEUS (http://www.perseus-fp7.eu/?page_id=17); EUROSUR; MARSUR; DOLPHIN - "Development of Pre-operational Services for Highly Innovative Maritime Surveillance Capabilities". These initiatives are owned by a diversity of actors (not necessarily coordinating with each other), such as DG MARE, DG MOVE, DG HOME, DG TAXUD, DG ENTR, DG JRC, FRONTEX, EMSA, and the different EU Member States. The main difference between these projects and EMSA’s IMDatE project is the operational outcome capability. All projects conducted so far on developing Integrated Maritime Surveillance (IMS) capabilities have been of theoretical research approach. The only two projects based on the applied research approach are EMSA’s IMDatE and Frontex’s EUROSUR. Both projects complement each other and together can provide a complete maritime picture for EU users. EMSA’s IMDatE platform provides the maritime picture of the commercial and fishing ships which are bound to use mandatory ship reporting systems, whilst Frontex’s EUROSUR platform provides the maritime picture of non-commercial ships (navy ships, not-identified ships engaged in illegal activities at sea, other types of vessels or targets detected at sea). Integration and correlation of the two complementary maritime data-sets provides a complete maritime picture. Both Agencies (EMSA and Frontex) are closely cooperating towards this end. In addition of the operational benefits provided by the integrated complete maritime picture, the cooperation between EMSA and Frontex is also an objective evidence of how inter-operability between different technical systems can be achieved using ICT and OGC standards. IMDatE platform is mainly based on Oracle suite of products (databases, Oracle Service Bus, Oracle Identity Management, etc), whilst EUROSUR is based on the Microsoft Windows platform. Despite choosing different technologies, both platforms are exchanging data using standard-based web-services.

3 GOVERNANCE MODEL FOR IMS Technical achievement of data and system integration was not the only challenge of the IMDatE project. Data and operational governance model associated to an integrated maritime picture was, and still is, an even more challenging task. The fundamental legal framework behind maritime surveillance approach is provided by the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) which in summary

Marin CHINTOAN-UTA « EMSA IMDatE » 7 states that a Coastal State has the exclusive rights to undertake maritime monitoring and surveillance within its territorial sea (12 nautical miles), or even beyond, to the extension of their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ – 200 nautical miles) in connection with their economic and exploration activities. This framework is further detailed at international level (IMO conventions), regional (EU) and National (MS) levels to match the needs of each country. Various authorities are tasked to set-up and operate maritime surveillance systems and usually they are the “owners” of the collected data and information. Data sharing, both at national and international level, is scarce and agreed on a case-by-case basis. The confidentiality of certain data can be a potential barrier to its exchange, originating from the inclusion of express legal provisions into the laws or on the basis of contractual provisions. At EU levels, another potential blocking barrier might be the application of the “personal data” protection laws (Dir 95/46/EC and Reg 45/200/EC). On the other side, the EU Transparency Regulation (1049/2001/EC) and the Environmental Information Directive (2003/4/EC) seeks to guarantee public access to EU information held by the public authorities. EU has initiated a number of maritime data sharing mechanisms, such as SafeSeaNet, CleanSeaNet, EU LRIT CDC, supported by relevant legal framework (Dir on VTMIS). However, further important steps need to be taken to support effective implementation of the EU IMP and its associated IMS. Traditionally, governance was associated with government, i.e. the formal institutions of the state and its monopoly of legitimate coercive power (Stoker, 1998). The last 15 years have introduced substantial horizontal and vertical changes in the governing process, derived from the modernization, regionalization and globalization of economic, social and political life. Some authors refer to this as a ‘shift from government to governance’ or as ‘governance without government’ (Rosenau, 2000; Van Kersbergen and Van Waarden, 2004). Within the process of this change, the development of an IMP has taken central stage on Europe’s policy and political agendas. The Commission has clearly expressed (Blue paper, 2007) the need for a more collaborative and integrated approach to overcome the inefficiencies, incoherencies and conflicts of use caused by the existing fragmented decision-making in maritime affairs. The new approach requires a new governance framework as well, that applies the integration principle at every level as well as horizontal and crosscutting policy tools, such as an integrated approach to data collection processing and delivery, and the coordination of surveillance and monitoring activities and processes (EC SEC(2007)1278). This approach is detailed in the COM communication “Towards the integration of maritime surveillance” (EC, COM(2009)538 final and SEC(2009)1341 final). The successful implementation of the IMP requires reflexive policy arrangements for experimental policy design, which are tailored to a particular problem in a particular context (Healey, 1998; Arts and Van Tatenhove, 2004; Grin 2010). Reflexive policy arrangements consists of coalitions of public and private actors who have the ability to change the rules of the game (rule-altering politics) and to mobilise resources in processes of policy making, in order to alter the foundations of traditional arrangements based on rule-directed politics. Within this context I am defining the concept of Integrated Maritime Governance (IMG) as the structural properties of policy arrangements (rules, resources and discourses) that results from the interactions and negotiations between actors and from the processes of structural changes. We have not achieved yet the stage of the IMG but two initiatives are on-going towards this end: a) the Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE) project coordinated by DG MARE (COM(2010) 584 final), and b) the revision of the VTMIS Directive (2002/59/EC) coordinated by DG MOVE. EMSA is an active participant in both projects and through the IMDatE platform it has demonstrated that technically the data exchange and integration is possible, but the current legal and governance framework stemming from the old sectorial fragmented governance is not suitable to support effective operation of IMS services. Furthermore, using bi-lateral agreements with EU and National authorities managing various maritime information systems (European Fishery Control Agency, EU NAVFOR, Frontex, Italian Coast Guard, Spanish Maritime Administration, Irish Coast Guard, etc), the IMDatE project has also demonstrated the added value of IMS services through the set-up and delivery of operational services. The most notable examples are the EU NAVFOR anti-piracy integrated service and EFCA integrated fishery control service. Lessons learned during this process are now used as input into two Impact Assessment studies addressing new EU legal framework for CISE and Integrated-VTMIS. The outcome of these Impact Assessments is expected towards the end of this year and will be used as the reference for new legislation supporting the IMP and associated IMG.


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4 CONCLUSION In line with EMSA’s tasks and its applied research approach, the IMDatE project is answering to a specific political and operational need – the integration of maritime information for the purpose of improved Maritime Domain Awareness at EU level. The project demonstrate the technical sustainability of real-time fusion and correlation of ship positioning data and delivery of an integrated ship track, including prediction of future course of the ship, the capability to collect all available information about the identified ships into a complete ship profile, including associated safety and security risk profile, and the geographical correlation of the maritime VTMIS picture with any other (radar) detected targets for the identification of nonidentified ships. The IMDatE based integrated surveillance services are a further step forward in improving safety and security standards at sea. As in most of the cases, the technology development went ahead of the political and legal framework. Availability of a complete maritime picture in an area of interest, like EU waters for example (or even world-wide), is not a matter of technical capability but rather an issue of data access legal framework. A number of initiatives and projects are on-going at regional and international level to deal with this issue – IMO e-Navigation, EU IMP, US IMSS (Integrated Maritime Surveillance System), Australian IMARCS (Integrated Maritime Coordination and Surveillance), etc. EMSA will continue its IMDatE project during 2014 shifting the focus from the technical integration to the legal framework supporting the new generation of integrated maritime services.

REFERENCES EC, European Commission (2006) - Towards a future Maritime policy for the Union: A European vision for the oceans and seas, Brussels EU COMMISSION (COM/2007-575 final) - EU Integrated Maritime Policy David L. Rainey (2008) - Product Innovation: Leading Change through Integrated Product Development Douglas, Laney (2012) - The Importance of 'Big Data': A Definition - (Gartner) International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA June 2011) - Recommendation V-145 on IVEF service EMSA (2010) – Maritime Business Operation Platform: technical specifications Greg Welch and Gary Bishop (2006) - An Introduction to the Kalman Filter EU COM (COM/2010/0584) - Communication on a Draft Roadmap towards establishing the Common Information Sharing Environment for the surveillance of the EU maritime domain Nils Roll-Hansen (2008) – Why the distinction between basic (theoretical) and applied (practical) research is important in the politics of science ECPR (2010) - Standing group on Regulatory Governance, 4 June 2010 Dublin DG MARE (2010) - Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Draft Roadmap towards establishing the Common Information Sharing Environment for the surveillance of the EU maritime domain, COM(2010) 584 final Arts, B., J. van Tatenhove (2006) - Political Modernization: Institutional Dynamics in Environmental Governance. Dordrecht, Van Tatenhove, J. (2008) - Innovative forms of Marine Governance: a reflection