Correcting the Destination Information in Automatic Identification System Messages

Abstract

The Automatic Identification System is a self-reporting system used by vessels and was introduced to enhance the operational picture on ship bridges. The Automatic Identification System destination port setting contains relevant information to anticipate a vessel’s path. In future mixed traffic situations, autonomous vessels depend on correct destination port information specifically of human-operated ships to prevent dangerous encounter situations. In our Automatic Identification System data recordings of the last three months of 2018 a total of 4.988 unique vessels passing the German Bight with 13,216 different destinations were found. We found that at least 52.2% of all vessel destination settings are erroneous and a total of 1.3% (172) of the destination field settings were entirely conforming to the IMO UN/LOCODE recommendations. Our sample data indicates that no improvement in the percentage of correct destination settings has been made. Different to earlier studies, we report and quantify all eight error categories that we found and propose an algorithm that automatically adjusts the destination field settings. From those destination settings that two humans were independently of each other able to correct just by consulting a port and offshore dictionary (77,1%) the algorithm was able to correct 53,38% of the messages.