The three STM presentations were well received at the IALA-VTS Symposium. One reflection is that, things we said a couples of years ago, that were deemed controversial then, are now widely accepted. The questions we receive are rather along the line “When can we have this?”. A trend is also an accepting attitude towards traffic management where the shore side has an active role. The last reflection is that the concept of STM is not alone anymore. Initiatives across the world are trying to make VTS integrate better with the ships. Coordination is needed in order to have a global information sharing standard.
Maritime EU-coordinator Brian Simpson enjoyed working part-time in the STM stand during TEN-T Days. And Sea Traffic Management was also a pillar in the strategic plan he presented during the event.
More ports can now connect to the Sea Traffic Management (STM) community by using a small selection of the standard messages, to share and receive estimated time of arrival (ETA) and actual time of departure (ATD) with other ports.
Reading out waypoints of an ice-route over VHF can easily be a source of misunderstanding. Sea Traffic Management aims to increase safety, and winter navigation is one important area for this. This spring the very first ice-route was sent directly from the Swedish icebreaker Frej to the Ro-Ro ship Transpaper using the on-board electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS). This illustrates how STM can lead the way for future winter navigation.
