IMO prioritizes e-navigation

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John Erik Hagen, Regional Director at the Norwegian Coastal Administration and Chairman of
the e-navigation working group at IMO
The IMO has put e-navigation back on the high-level action plan of the Maritime Safety
Committee. The program was to finish this year, but the outcomes achieved at MSC 95 earlier
this month mean that work will continue for at least four more years. Five of the six planned
work items were approved with the opportunity to re-present the sixth next year.
E-navigation aims to provide needed information, in electronic format, to a ship's bridge team
to enhance the safety and efficiency of navigation. This involves the integration of new and
existing bridge technologies and equipment to enable the provision of globally harmonized
maritime services. E-navigation will also help simplify the exchange of information between
systems on board ships, between ships and shore, and on shore.
“The most important outcome of MSC 95 is that IMO will take a lead in harmonizing e-
navigation systems,” says John Erik Hagen, Regional Director at the Norwegian Coastal
Administration and Chairman of the e-navigation working group at IMO. “As technology
develops, many new systems are being introduced such as the under-keel clearance system
in the Torres Strait and another in the St Lawrence Seaway. If e-navigation is to work around
the world, these innovative systems must be harmonized as far as possible for ships to be
able to use e-navigation globally.”
Hagen says some shipowners may act early on e-navigation. “As e-navigation rolls out, those
who wish to take advantage of what it offers will fit early,” he says. “The cost savings on ship
reporting will encourage early fits. However, at this stage the IMO have no plans for
mandating e-navigation. It is unlikely that anything will be ready until 2020.”
Meeting User Needs

2. The Nautical Institute (NI) is pleased that, given the wide scope of e-navigation, the IMO has
chosen priorities that meet user needs, says David Patraiko, Director of Projects. “When the
program of e-navigation was first adopted by the IMO in 2006, the Secretary General made
it very clear that it should be led by user needs. The NI, as a leading organization for mariners,
then embarked on an extensive task of gathering these needs by holding workshops through
its international branch network, visiting ships, discussing it with its members and using all
sorts of tools at its disposal. These needs were then shared with the IMO and other
organizations involved in the development of e-navigation.
“Although all the priorities set by IMO are a step in the right direction, and the NI look forward
to working with the international community to continually represent its members’ needs, we
recognize that this is a not a fast process,” says Patraiko. “It started at the IMO in 2006 and
will result in a range of guidelines being produced by 2020. Many of the e-navigation solutions
and priorities require an internationally agreed infrastructure to harmonize the exchange and
presentation of essential information, and we hope that in time these current priorities will
lead to a more effective tool for mariners.”
The Paperless Ship
One of the key initiatives of the e-navigation project is automated ship reporting. It is
anticipated that many forms currently required for customs, immigration, cargo manifest and
dangerous goods, for example, will be made and submitted electronically in a harmonized
format for all ports.
Patraiko says that this was a priority for mariners to reduce the administrative burden of
reporting the same information to multiple shore authorities, which often distracts bridge
teams (often teams of one) from the core job of safe navigation. This has been recognized
by the IMO by prioritizing the revision of the guidelines and criteria for ship reporting systems
(resolution MSC.43(64), as amended) relating to standardized and harmonized electronic
ship reporting and automated collection of onboard data for reporting.
ECDIS
“There are over 30 manufacturers of ECDIS, many of which have more than one model. In
the past some of the key operational features have been widely different from one
manufacturer to another,” says Patraiko. “This has resulted in mariners having a difficult task
to be familiar with the controls when they move from one ship to another. It also places an
unrealistic burden on training providers to instruct mariners in how to use all the different
models of navigation equipment that they may come across in the world fleet.”
A solution to this challenge, as proposed by the NI, is for the development of an “S mode” or
standard mode of operation for navigation displays. This has been recognized as a priority by
the IMO. Draft guidelines will describe a standardized mode of operation and display for all
navigational equipment and provide seafarers with the ability to operate all navigation
equipment in a standardized manner, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of
navigation.
Work on S mode has been scheduled but has a later deadline than the guidelines for ECDIS
standardization. “The displays on ECDIS are already standardized well in the International
Electrotechnical Commission test standards with a number of default displays being required,”

3. says Hagen. “However, the advantage of an ECDIS is that the display can be altered to
support particular situations. The idea in S mode is that it can return quickly to one of the
standards.
“S mode is not as mature or simple as some of the other new work items. It is not yet clear
what exactly a default mode for most equipment should be as again it might be affected by
the situation, such as deep sea, harbor approach, coastal passage etc. Work needs to be
done in other organizations such as research institutes and universities to study the subject
and the appropriate human machine interface before it can be brought to IMO as a draft for
consideration,” says Hagen.
Other standardization improvements that e-navigation will bring include harmonizing the
displaying of information received by communications equipment. Improved reliability and
resiliency of navigation systems and in particular GNSS where reliance on GPS was seen to
be a weakness have also been addressed at MSC95 with the IMO prioritizing Built In Integrity
Testing (BIIT) for navigation equipment.
By Wendy Laursen 2015-06-26 20:48:13