First fleet management system to utilise Google Earth
GlobalView Route Comparison shows AWT’s route providing better clearance of hurricane Igor while providing earlier arrival
The Californian based Applied Weather Technology, (AWT), recently launched GlobalView, an innovative new fleet management system that combines AWT’s ship routing services and software with Google Earth technology.
This gives fleet managers a more visual, easy-to-use and powerful system for enhancing the safety of ships and crew, reducing fuel consumption and curbing carbon emissions. “We believe GlobalView to be the first fleet management system to utilise Google Earth technology and this brings a significant innovation to ship routing technology,” said Skip Vaccarello, president and CEO for AWT.
“What’s innovative about GlobalView is that it delivers the data fleet manager’s need in an extraordinarily visual, easy to use and dynamic way,” explained Vaccarello. “With Google Earth, GlobalView makes it much easier for fleet managers to protect vessels and crew and identify more opportunities to reduce fuel consumption and curb carbon emissions.”
Unlike typical fleet management products that require fleet managers to access and analyze massive amounts of data from disparate systems, GlobalView literally gives fleet managers a ‘global view’ of the locations of their companies’ vessels and makes it easy to access important weather and ship-routing data about their current voyages. Fleet managers can see in an instant, all in one place, information that could have otherwise taken hours to gather from many sources. Vessels appear on the globe as colour-coded icons that can be customised to provide fleet managers with alerts regarding ship performance, fuel consumption/carbon emissions, weather conditions, ETAs or other factors. A click on the vessel icon gives a summary of the current voyage and sea state.
“What makes GlobalView unique is that it was developed with Google’s API technology, which adds a layer on top of Google Earth so that fleet managers can easily manipulate the data.” said Richard Brown, vice president of product management at AWT.
With one glance at GlobalView, fleet managers can identify which ships have alerts warning of excessive fuel consumption. Fleet managers can also view opportunities to reduce vessels’ fuel consumption and carbon emissions with AWT’s recommended routes. They can see captains’ intended routes and quickly compare them to routes being recommended by AWT for optimal safety, fuel savings and carbon emissions reductions. Alerts can help fleet managers to proactively work with captains during voyages to take advantage of more fuel-efficient routes.
AWT estimates its routing services and BonVoyage (BVS) marine voyage optimisation software save the shipping industry approximately 365,000 tonnes of fuel annually. This translates to potential cost savings of more than $166 million per year and reduction of 1,162,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions.
With GlobalView fleet managers can easily see where severe weather and ocean conditions are occurring relative to vessels’ locations, including a new display of potential rogue wave areas, and also view weather forecasts. While many competitors take raw forecast data from governmental agencies and repackage it for customers, AWT continuously enhances the wind forecast around tropical cyclones, monsoon areas, and other high-risk areas where conventional model data performs poorly. Then AWT runs a proprietary WaveWatch III wave model to provide the best short- and medium-range forecast available. When these features are combined with long-range vessel simulation from AWT’s proprietary Climatological Ship Resistance model, ETA projections improve by approximately eight percent compared to using conventional climatological weather.
GlobalView also provides historical pirate attack data so that the information is readily available to fleet managers who can easily access information about pirate activity showing all the regions where their vessels are travelling. The system shows details about actual and attempted pirate attacks, as well as suspicious vessel data, with time and location details. Fleet managers can filter the data by attack type and are provided colour coded icons to easily identify where attacks have occurred. The data empowers fleet managers to work together with captains and AWT to help ships avoid regions known for pirate activity and identify optimal alternative routes.Images for this article - click to enlarge
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