A s a measure of its perceived im-portance, in order to facilitate the use of Electronic Chart Dis-play systems ECDIS in shipping, Den-mark, Estonia, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden
Trang 1A s a measure of its perceived
im-portance, in order to facilitate
the use of Electronic Chart
Dis-play systems (ECDIS) in shipping,
Den-mark, Estonia, Finland, France, Norway
and Sweden have taken an unprecedented
step and decided to reduce the
recom-mended retail price of their Electronic
Navigational Charts (ENCs) by 70%.
In March 2001, the Baltic Carrier and Tern
collided in Kadetrenden between Denmark
and Germany causing an oil spill of 2,700
tonnes of heavy fuel An extraordinary
meet-ing of Ministers of Transport and the
Envi-ronment from the countries surrounding the
Baltic Sea was convened in Copenhagen and
a declaration was adopted containing a large
number of measures to improve the safety
of navigation in the Baltic Sea and to increase
response capacity to accidents This was the
Copenhagen Declaration (see Note 1 at the
end of the article) Due to its unique
char-acteristics, ECDIS was identified as one of
the major contributors to increased
naviga-tional safety
The central parts of the Copenhagen
Decla-ration aimed at promoting the use of ECDIS
have been transferred to the Helsinki
Con-vention, making the measures binding on
governments The revised text of the
con-vention concerning ECDIS is as follows:
Regulation 9: Improved hydrographic
serv-ices and promotion of the use of Electronic
Navigational Charts (ENC)
1) The Contracting Parties:
a) shall develop a scheme for systematic
re-surveying of major shipping routes and ports
in order to ensure that safety of navigation
is not endangered by inadequate source
in-formation The survey shall be carried out
to a standard not inferior to the latest edition
of IHO S-44 The scheme shall be elaborated
Facilitating the use
of ECDIS
By Steen Nielsen and Ole Berg
jointly by the hydrographic services respon-sible for the areas in question not later than
by the end of 2002 with the aim to begin implementation by 2003
b) shall develop Electronic Navigational
Charts (ENC):
i) for major shipping routes and ports by the end of 2002 Major shipping routes and ports shall be selected on the basis of vol-umes of dangerous goods and number of passengers; and
ii) for secondary shipping routes and ports
by the end of 2004
2) The Contracting Parties:
a) shall accept Electronic Chart Display
and Information Systems (ECDIS) as equiva-lent to paper charts in accordance with Chap-ter V of SOLAS;
b) undertake to enter into negotiations with
shippers and recipients in their States, who are involved in transport of goods to and from ports in the Baltic Sea Area, with the aim that the commercial parties (e.g national shippers and receivers) make arrangements
to the effect that:
i) ships with a draft of 11 metres or
Major shipping routes in the Baltic area
Baltic support
Trang 2more, and for the Sound oil tankers with
a draft of 7 metres or more, chemical
tank-ers and gas carritank-ers irrespective of size and
ships carrying a shipment of INF cargo carry
ECDIS;
c) shall by the end of the year 2002 as a
matter of particular interest ensure that port
State control of paper charts is intensified
on board ships with a draught of 11 metres
or more, and for the Sound oil tankers with
a draft of 7 metres or more, chemical
tank-ers and gas carritank-ers irrespective of size and
ships carrying a shipment of INF cargo
This change to the Helsinki Convention is
unique as it is the first internationally
bind-ing instrument that mentions:
1. Regular surveys of shipping routes,
2. the development of Electronic
Naviga-tional Charts, and
3. the carriage of ECDIS
In addition, the above-mentioned actions are
introduced with fixed implementation
dead-lines, a very unusual step that fully
under-lines the contracting parties’ recognition of
the importance of these measures
The effect of the measures is that from the
end of 2002 full ECDIS navigation will be
possible on all major shipping routes and to
all major ports in the Baltic Sea From the
end of 2004 the same goes for the entire
Baltic Sea and the approaches to the Baltic
Sea Full ECDIS navigation has been
possi-ble in all Danish waters from July 2000
The contracting parties to the Helsinki
Con-vention are Estonia, Denmark, Finland,
Ger-many, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia,
Sweden and the European Union Of these
countries, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland
and Sweden are, together with France,
co-operating with Norway on providing central
access to their official ENCs, which are
needed for full ECDIS use, i.e paper charts
need not be carried if an adequate back-up
system for ECDIS is available
The seven countries have also decided that
the price of the ENCs must not inhibit the
take-up of ECDIS and this is the reason for
the 70% reduction in the recommended
re-tail prices (See Note 2 for further
informa-tion and a list of distributors.)
ECDIS is far more than a digital chart, it is a
decision support tool of a kind that has never before been available on the bridge of a ship
ECDIS allows for real-time navigation and monitoring of a ship’s position and move-ments but it is the ability to integrate infor-mation from all navigation sensors and par-ticularly Radar, ARPA and AIS into a single comprehensive and easily readable picture that holds the true power of ECDIS
On a bridge without ECDIS, the Master has
to make all the necessary correlations be-tween the radar image, ARPA targets, fixed and floating aids to navigation depicted on the chart, the navigable part of the
water-way, the plotting of positions on the chart and the dead-reckoned and estimated posi-tions allowing for drift induced by wind, etc
in his head, supported by drawings and cal-culations performed on the paper chart
In confined and congested waters it is a task that greatly raises the stress level on a ship’s bridge, and these scenarios are loved by all instructors in bridge resource management and exploited to the fullest in their attempts
to introduce maximum stress in ship han-dling simulators ECDIS takes away the stress caused by the need to keep track of all the information necessary to make the
ECDIS - the short version
Without ECDIS - a high stress level on the bridge
ECDIS allows the Master to focus on making the right decisions in a timely and controlled manner.
Trang 3appropriate decisions in the head and
will allow the Master to focus on making
the right decisions in a timely and
control-led manner
In addition, ECDIS enables automatic
up-dating of chart information, thus relieving
navigators of the tedious job of correcting
charts on costly overtime and further
re-moves the risk of them making errors in the
process It is precisely these characteristics
that will help reduce the human error that is
the source of most collisions, groundings and
near misses at sea
In the following accounts it is important to
note the distinction between ECDIS, which
is a type-approved system, and Electronic
Chart Systems, which are not
type-ap-proved Ships carrying ECDIS need not
carry paper charts
A.P Moller Group
In December 2001, the A.P Moller Group
decided to retrofit 160 vessels with ECDIS
following extensive trials conducted by
sen-ior navigators with extensive experience of
navigation on traditionally equipped bridges
Captain Hans Peder Mikkelsen, Marine
De-partment, gives some of the rationale behind
the decision taken by A.P Moller Group:
“One of the core reasons was the decision
support provided by using the ECDIS in all
phases of the voyage, from route planning
to the end of the voyage Particularly during
passage of shallow and trafficked waters,
ECDIS significantly reduces the workload
of the navigator and enhances the situation
awareness on the bridge
The system’s unique ability to combine the
radar image with the chart image by a single
action gives an immediate and constant
con-firmation of the navigators’ decisions The
information about other ships provided by
AIS, which will be implemented in
accord-ance with the new SOLAS Chapter V, will
most naturally be displayed on the ECDIS
display to further increase the knowledge
about other ships in the area
During ocean passage, the ability to
com-bine forecasts on weather, sea and swell with
the planned route allows for on site weather
routing quickly and easily resulting in fuel
savings The subsequent amendments to the
route planning are carried out in a matter of
minutes The ECDIS software takes care of
checking for dangers to navigation
automati-cally, provided a vector chart is used
Charts can be updated quickly and accurately saving navigators’ time to making the correc-tions and avoiding errors in the process Also, NAVTEX messages are automatically scan-ned for position information and a NAVTEX symbol appears in the referenced position al-lowing the navigators quick access to safety critical information without having to go through a manual plotting procedure.”
The overall conclusion reached by the A.P
Moller Group is that ECDIS will increase the safety of navigation significantly
Troms Fylkes Dampskibsselskab a/s
Troms Fylkes Dampskibsselskab a/s, which operates large passenger vessels along the Norwegian coast, has chosen to equip all vessels with ECDIS for reasons similar to those of the A.P Moller Group
This type of navigation is very demanding, especially during the long winter season, because it takes place mainly along the Nor-wegian coast and in and out of harbours through the archipelagos and the narrow fjords and sounds
Troms Fylkes Dampskibsselskab has used Electronic Chart Systems since 1992 and now uses ECDIS The experience gained is
a significant increase in the confidence of the bridge team Complicated navigational situations are handled calmly as the ECDIS gives the information required to identify fixed and floating aids to navigation, skerries and small islands and distinguishes such items from other ships on the radar which combined with track steering is still the main navigational tool
One glance at the ECDIS confirms the ship’s immediate position In the pre-ECDIS days, Captain Harrod Widding, Senior Captain in Troms Fylkes Dampskibsselskab, often had
to sail past ports along the route during win-ter because sea clutwin-ter from the confused sea, the swell pattern in the archipelago and clut-ter from snow completely obscured the ra-dar picture
The availability of ECDIS on board has sig-nificantly increased the regularity of port visits, especially during the cold season Captain Widding’s advice to operators of passenger ships in the Baltic Sea, which has many similarities with the Norwegian Coast
in many areas, is to switch to ECDIS as quickly as possible
The Royal Danish Navy
In late 2000 the Royal Danish Navy decided
to go for a full ECDIS implementation on all ships The ECDIS policy of the navy is
in short:
1. Full ECDIS implementation
2. All navigation sensors to be fully inter-faced via a navigation computer
3. No more paper charts
4. Ships’ bridges to be remodelled
5. All navigational officers to receive ECDIS training
The Navy particularly emphasizes the train-ing aspects, as navigattrain-ing with ECDIS is seen
as a completely new way of navigating
“ECDIS cannot be implemented safely if you think you are just performing the same tasks
on a screen Then you have not understood what ECDIS really is!”, says Commander Carsten Reiff, a key figure in the Royal Dan-ish Navy’s ECDIS implementation process Another key element is the decision to re-model the bridges during the installation
In December 2001, the A.P Moller Group decided to retrofit 160 vessels with ECDIS
Practical experiences
Trang 4process in order to serve two main
pur-poses Firstly, to put the navigator and the
ECDIS in the best possible place so that the
navigator has a good overview out of the
windows, secondly, to emphasize that the
change to ECDIS truly involves a new way
of navigating and that the ECDIS is not just
a new box to be tucked in where room can
be found
Extensive trials with a number of ECDIS
systems leading up to the tendering process
gave the following main reasons for the
de-cisions:
1. A unique en route management tool.
2. Easy to use
3. No paper charts - no time-consuming
corrections
4. Real-time information
5. Increased situation awareness/mental
surplus
6. Ability to work together with other
dig-ital databases
The very nature of naval operations with
fre-quent changes of route plans which,
espe-cially in Search and Rescue operations, take
place in the worst possible weather, calls for
the best possible decision support system
also on the ship’s bridge ECDIS is exactly
the system that the Navy’s navigators have
been looking for
The Navy also experiences near-misses and
groundings as commanding officers drive
their ships at high speed through shallow and
confined waterways when training crews
The Navy expects to see a marked decrease
in such incidents following the
implementa-tion of ECDIS, which is scheduled for
com-pletion in 2003
Seatrans
Seatrans can be counted among ECDIS
pio-neers, participating in the very first trials with
Electronic Chart Systems in the late 1980s
Seatrans’ main area of operations are along
the Norwegian coast, in the Baltic Sea and
European ports, but the route Europe, South
America, the Gulf of Mexico and back to
Europe is also covered
From the first moment that the Electronic
Chart System was considered, it proved a
very good aid to navigation for experienced
navigators in coastal traffic The ability to
remove stress and tension during the frequent
periods with bad weather and poor visibility especially was highly appreciated by navi-gators - to such a degree that today naviga-tors almost insist that an Electronic Chart System is carried
Director Knut Skaar from Seatrans fully agrees with the experiences and evaluations made by Herodd Widding from Troms Fylkes Damskibsselskab Today Seatrans’
vessels are equipped with various types of Electronic Charts Systems and the company
is waiting for final confirmation from the regulatory authorities before type-approved ECDIS are fitted
The aim is to reduce the paper chart carriage
as much as possible As an example, the time spent on chart corrections on a chemical tanker on the Europe - South America - Gulf
of Mexico - Europe route corresponds to one navigator working full time
The requirement to keep all charts fully up
to date is being increasingly emphasized, especially by shippers of oil, chemicals etc
The shipping line must be able to document that all rules and regulations are observed, including the requirement that all charts car-ried are corrected and up to date
Seatrans has also experienced a significant drop in the accident rate Before Electronic Chart Systems were fitted, Seatrans experi-enced at least one serious grounding per year
Today, groundings are rare, though they do occur In one particular case a grounding occurred, fortunately only on a sand bar, because the navigator was only looking at the paper chart, where a sand bar had not
been marked with the usual red ink circle Knut Skaar is positive that a single glance at the Electronic Chart System would have shown the danger immediately However, the paper chart was the required basis for navi-gation, as the system was an Electronic Charts System and not an ECDIS
The new Chapter V of SOLAS, which en-ters into force on 1 July 2002, mentions ECDIS explicitly for the first time Regula-tion 19 states in paragraphs 1.2.4 and 1.2.5:
1.2.4 nautical charts and nautical publica-tions to plan and display the ship’s route for the intended voyage and to plot and monitor positions throughout the voyage; an Elec-tronic Chart Display and Information Sys-tem (ECDIS) may be accepted as meeting the chart carriage requirements of this subparagraph;
1.2.5 back up arrangements to meet the functional requirements of sub-paragraph 4,
if this function is partly or fully fulfilled by electronic means;*
* An appropriate folio of paper nautical charts may be used as a back-up arrange-ment for ECDIS Back-up arrangearrange-ments not inferior to resolution A.817(19), as amended, Recommendation of Performance Standards for Electronic Chart Display and Informa-tion Systems (ECDIS) are also acceptable
In order to make sure that there is no doubt about the status of ECDIS in Denmark, the Danish Maritime Authority will notify
Coastal navigation through archipelagos and narrow fjords and sounds can be very demanding.
Regulatory status
Trang 5the IMO that Denmark accepts ECDIS
as fulfilling the chart carriage requirement
under the new SOLAS Chapter V The other
signatory states to the Helsinki Convention
will take similar steps
ECDIS was accepted only as an equivalence
under the SOLAS chapter V in force until 1
July 2002 Bearing this in mind, in October
2001 Denmark informed the IMO that ECDIS
would be accepted as an equivalence to
pa-per charts on Danish-flagged ships
Conse-quently, full ECDIS navigation has been
al-lowed in Danish waters from that time
These actions taken by the Danish Maritime
Authority are meant to underline the full
support for a rapid introduction of ECDIS
in ships operating in and out of the Baltic
Sea, but also on a worldwide basis The
de-cision of the Hydrographic Offices to lower
the recommended retail prices significantly
is a further step to encourage ship owners to
invest in ECDIS to the benefit of safety of
navigation and also, ultimately, to the
ben-efit of shareholders
A number of E.U.-funded research projects
dealing with various aspects of safety of
navigation have identified ECDIS as a
sys-tem that will have a considerable positive
impact on safety of navigation
THALASSES
Project objective: The assessment of the
socio-economic impacts of new
technologi-cal concepts in maritime transport, on the
human element
One of the findings of the report is:
“How-ever, the electronic chart or ECDIS
(Elec-tronic Chart Display and Information
Sys-tem) is going to become the most important
part of a future INS It is the ideal platform
to integrate (again, functionally and
opera-tionally) the important navigational sensor
information, the hydrographic data, the
plan-ning data and additional geographical
infor-mation to give the user all data on hand he
needs for a safe and efficient voyage.”
TECHNISECC
Project objective: Research and
demonstra-tion of conceptual (legal, procedural and
or-ganisational) tools and scenarios to be
inte-grated into VTS to provide “value added
services”
One of the findings of the report is:
“Fi-nally the presentation on Automatic
Infor-mation System (AIS) and on Electronic
Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) put an emphasis on the role to be played in a very near future by both those systems, not only on board ships but also
on shore In this latter respect it may be expected that coupled with VTS equipment, AIS and ECDIS will considerably improve the quality of the traffic image both at tac-tical and strategic levels.”
SAFECO II
Project objective: The project objective was
to devise improved technologies and organi-sation for internal/external communication and to demonstrate the application of risk analysis methods to assess economical ben-efits and safety improvements of the devised solutions for total quality operations
One of the findings of the report is: “…The simplified and the advanced model estimates the same effect of a full implementation of Collision Avoidance Advisory Systems (CAAS) housed on ECDIS in relation to powered grounding accidents The probabil-ity for powered grounding, given a critical situation is estimated to be reduced with 15% The results from the two models differ significantly with respect to the reduction in the collision probability, given a critical situ-ation The “advanced” model results in a re-duction amounting to 10%, while the sim-plified model results in a reduction amount-ing to about 20%.”
See Note 3 below for the full texts of these reports
All in all, these research results clearly lead
to the same deductions as those already made
by the shipping companies mentioned above: ECDIS has a significant potential for increas-ing safety of navigation
References to ECDIS are also made in a
pro-posed EU directive following the Erika
ac-cident in 1999 In the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament the following is stated:
“Construction of the global navigation and positioning infrastructure is now a European Union priority through the GALILEO project This initiative will lead to a reliable and highly accurate service (3 metres on the high seas and 1 metre in port areas), which should serve as a reference for positioning systems applicable to ships in or near Com-munity waters Together with ECDIS, GALI-LEO offers a unique level of service in con-tributing to improved conditions of naviga-bility and safety.”
See Note 4 below for the full text of this Communication
All in all, this points towards an increasing awareness within the E.U system that imple-mentation of ECDIS in ships calling at Euro-pean ports and transiting EuroEuro-pean waters is
a way of increasing safety of navigation
The Erika incident, though caused by a
struc-tural fault rather than a navigational error, brought the significant environmental risks inherent in shipping to the notice of the E.U Current activities indicate that this aware-ness is still present and that efforts are
Ole Berg Steen Nielsen
At E.U level
Trang 6being made to avoid events with similar
impact on the environment at all costs
Any ship operator operating in the Baltic Sea
and in the approaches to the Baltic Sea can
with confidence start investing in ECDIS All
the Helsinki Convention signatories actively
support and encourage the use of ECDIS and
have committed themselves to provide the
ENCs needed for full ECDIS use
Substantial practical experience shows that there are numerous positive benefits from the use of ECDIS, most significantly the in-creased situation awareness But also the possibility of savings in fuel, of avoiding damage to ships due to collisions and groundings and of preventing lost sailing days due to repairs is evident
Finally, increased competitiveness due to the ability to operate confidently in adverse weather conditions should be mentioned
Now these benefits are also backed by re-search results One central finding in casu-alty investigations is that the human factor accounts for the overwhelming majority of accidents Hence, schemes that limit the ex-tent of human errors, for example by means
of better education and training, ECDIS sys-tems and other policies are the most likely risk reduction factors It is the authors’ hope that ship owners will follow the lead of the companies mentioned in this article to the benefit of all ■
Notes
1 The full text of the Copenhagen Declaration can
be read on the following website: http://www.helcom.fi/
manandsea/shipping/navigation.html.
2 A list of distributors can be found at:
www.primar.org/stavanger.
3 The full texts of the E.U reports can be found at:
h t t p : / / e u ro p a e u i n t / c o m m / t r a n s p o r t / ex t r a /
rep_waterborne.html
4 The full text of the Communication from the EU
Hesitate no longer!
Commission to the European Parliament can be found at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/
library/com142-en.pdf
Editor’s Note: Ole Berg is a former submarine
Com-manding Officer in the Royal Danish Navy Since
1993, he has been Director of the Danish Hydro-graphic Office (Charting) He has been active in the international co-operation on the development of Electronic Navigational Charts and ECDIS.
Steen Nielsen is a Special Adviser at the Danish
Mari-time Authority (DMA), Division of Safety & Environ-mental Legislation, where he is responsible for safety
of navigation issues on a national, regional and glo-bal basis He graduated as a deck officer in 1980 and, after having served as a Mate and Chief-Mate in tank, supply and passenger ships, got his Master Degree
in 1985 While sailing for a national ferry line he started at law school, obtaining his law degree in
1992 Since 1993 he has been working in several DMA divisions/sections He is a trained ship surveyor and has been part of the team that introduced the ISM Code to Danish ships and companies.
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