EU grants €21 million to new Sea Traffic Management Validation Project

EU has decided to contribute with €21 million to the Sea Traffic Management Validation Project, a Motorways of the Sea project. Test beds in Northern Europe and Mediterranean Sea will engage 300 vessels, 10 ports of different sizes and 3 shore centres. These will validate the Sea Traffic Management (STM) concept and pave the way for smooth deployment of new collaborative services previously unknown to sea transport but existing for many years in other transport sectors.

STM will overcome many of the challenges of communication and information sharing between stakeholders in the maritime transport industry and create significant added value to, in particular, ship- and cargo-owners as well as ports.

The preceding MONALISA projects have brought advancements in technology and digital innovation to the maritime sector, a base for asustainableshipping industry, reducing the environmental impact while improving safetyand efficiency.

The STM Concept has been defined within the MONALISA 2.0 project. A technical protocol for route exchange has been developed and is in the phase of international standardization. This is a huge achievement and a pre-requisite for further development and deployment of Sea Traffic Management.

Europe has a leading position in traffic management solutions and e-Navigation globally. The potential to explore the benefits of STM and deploying STM Services are great, both for European industry and the whole global society.

“True demonstrations of the value of Sea Traffic Management services will help avoid setbacks in deployment and make industry and other important stakeholders engage fully”, says Magnus Sundström, Project Leader of the STM Validation Project.

Seaing is believing!

The STM Validation Project encompasses 39 partners (private, public and academic) from 13 countries and with a total budget of 43 million Euro. The project duration is 2015-2018.