AIS Network Alerts Ships Down in Whale Areas

NOAA press release

A new real-time messaging network uses the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to reduce the possibility of vessel strikes involving endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Ship strikes are a leading source of right whale injury and death. NOAA photo.

Right whales are at high risk of injury or death from vessel strikes. NOAA and partners are using AIS in a new way to reduce that risk. AIS transmits the location, speed, and other characteristics of vessels in real time for navigational purposes.

All commercial vessels 65 feet or longer are required to carry AIS devices onboard. In collaboration with MotionInfo, a maritime data company based in Massachusetts, NOAA is building a speed limit alert network to deliver text messages to vessels traveling within important right whale habitats.

Like radar speed signs for drivers, these messages are designed to increase awareness of speed limits and remind mariners to slow down in areas where right whales are likely to be present.

Most vessels 65 feet or longer are required by federal law to travel at 10 knots or less in designated locations — called Seasonal Management Areas — at certain times of the year when right whales are likely to be present. With this new messaging network, shore-based AIS transceiver stations can detect vessel speeds within the Seasonal Management Areas. If a vessel is traveling faster than 10 knots, it will receive an alert.

MotionInfo provides the installation and maintenance of the alert network’s shore-based AIS transceivers, known as StationKeepers. These transceivers communicate with vessels’ AIS devices and broadcast the text messages.

The system was tested through a pilot project in the Cape Cod Bay Seasonal Management Area during winter of 2024.

The network sent messages to several commercial cargo and tanker vessels’ AIS receivers, notifying them that they exceeded the speed limit. The receivers replied with acknowledgement messages, verifying that the speed alerts were delivered successfully to the vessel’s AIS unit. During the pilot project, 83% of vessels slowed down after receiving an AIS message.