Earlier this month, an explosion took place in Beirut port due to the unloading of a massive store of ammonium nitrate from a detained ship in very poor condition. Another incident that occurred on the coast of Mauritius is the grounded bunker Wakashio leaked 1,000 metric tonnes of bunker fuel into the Indian Ocean. These incidents remind the risk of maritime disasters.
To improve maritime intelligence, spot potential trouble, and make smarter decisions earlier it is essential to harness the power of predictive analytics which can ensure maritime safety to protect lives, livelihoods, and the environment.
To enhance maritime analytics capabilities, industries and regulators need to join forces. Early detection of suspicious activity, mitigates human error, which helps in real-time visibility into the status and condition of every vessel in the waters can be powered by international ‘ocean mission control ‘with sophisticated technology.
The likelihood of accidents and coupled with port state control inspection data can be predicted with machine learning models. Globally, authorities can take action as these machine learning models will act as a guide and be acted upon any illicit activity based on the warning signs.
Insights can be drawn from voyage irregularities which depend on the transparent data. Stakeholders are not ensuring the availability of such information in the case of the Beirut port explosion. To protect ship-owners and prevent accountability, designing anemic enforcement by shady flag registries is to be done but its results can be catastrophic.
Identification of voyage irregularities and stop criminal activity cannot be done during the current system. Before the collision in Wakashio with a coral reef just off the Mauritian coast, the vessel merited closer scrutiny based on few data points indicated.
Nearly three years, the ship was crossing the Indian Ocean for the first time which raised the risk of the accident. The vessel would collide with the reef for any deviation from common sailing lanes and 12 hours before the grounding, Wakashio had been outside common lanes.
The capacity or know-how to operate such technology and take action is lacked by many island nations and a de-facto full-service bureau can solve this issue. To prevent maritime disasters, authorities can take actionable insights by monitoring each vessel’s patterns, behavior, and condition.
The importance and urgency of this issue need to be recognized by the community and must step up to the challenge. To keep vessels and their surrounding environments safe, all maritime operators are to be equipped with the digital tools and analytical capabilities which should be ensured by international governments and industry players.
