LOGBOEK  - JOURNAL DE BORD

Datema making waves in ENC licensing

Datema Delfzijl has launched a new ENC service that could radically alter the way that operators use and pay for their electronic charts – however, UKHO has taken issue with the system, and has gone to IC-ENC requesting “clarification” of the validity of this licensing set-up

 

Navigational chart d i s t r i b u t o r Datema Delfzijl has launched a new 'payas-you-sail' ENC distribution system that will, for the first time, allow users to pay for chart licences starting from the time that the vessel enters the chart coverage area, and not from the time that the cell is opened for voyage planning.

Ships carrying the ‘ENCTrack’ system willhave all globally available ENCs and relevant permits installed onboard the vessel in advance, provided by Primar, with specific ENCs only being registered and charged by the new product when the chart is actually used within the coverage area.

Datema has developed a satellite-based tracking system for the ENC package, recording the time when the vessel enters the chart area and marking when the licence should be activated and charged for.

 

However, while this new approach to ENC licensing would mark a radical departure from existing arrangements for the use of charts, as it would completely remove the need for companies to pay for charts used for voyage planning and reduce overall costs, it seems to have created some level of disagreement within the navigation community.

The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) has taken issue with the new service, questioning the validity of a licensing arrangement that places “no value” on chart data used for planning purposes.

UKHO has lodged a request with the International Centre for ENCs (IC-ENC) for “clarification” of whether or not the provision of charts by Primar in this way constitutesa breach of accepted international agreements in chart licensing (for moreon the UKHO reaction to this service, see page 26).

In the meantime, Datema is pressing ahead with the introduction of this new innovation, which Willem Amels director with Datema Delfzijl, believes will help to improve the twin challenges of onboard chart availability and high portfolio costs.

“If you have a navigation system in your car, have you ever had the situation where you have to go somewhere and that charts aren't in the navigation system?” he said.

“This is something that will happen onboard a ship quite often. You can have invested in an ECDIS system but there can be all sorts of reasons why the charts aren't there, and very often it might be for economic purposes.”

“For example, take a ship, travelling in bad weather, where there is an accident onboard and a sailor needs to be taken to the nearest port. You can have a big problem here if the ship doesn't have the charts for the port. It might have an ECDIS, but no charts, so the second mate will be ordered to get the charts as soon as possible.”

Mr Amels believes that the process of making a new set of charts available on the vessel is an unnecessary distraction on the modern bridge, detracting from the priority task of situational awareness.

“What needs to be done? The second mate needs to start up the PC at the back of the bridge with the chart catalogue and find the proper ENC for this port, then he has to type an e-mail to the chart distributor,” he told us.

“It will take a few minutes for the licence files to get there, then he has to go on to the e-mail system again and save the licence file on a floppy disk, go back to the ECDIS and install the floppy disk. Then he has to look for the proper base CD andinstall it.”

“We think it takes from 30 minutes to one hour to get the proper chart, and the ship cannot go to this port unless it has the chart, so there's a big safety problem here. There's a challenge here – we can do things better.”

Tracking and licensing

Datema believes it can improve on current chart procurement and licensing processes with its ENCTrack service, which has been in testing since September 2008 on a trial vessel and has collected six months worth of track data to see how charges are accrued in a reallife trading scenario.

The system was also trialled on a heavy lift vessel, a general cargo vessel on transatlantic trade, two short sea vessels and a chemical tanker.

“Once you subscribe to our service you'll get a world folio of charts, for free,” said Mr Amels.

“There is a catch – you need some way to monitor their use. If we know where the vessel is at all times, then we can also determine what chart it is using at all times. So we went from there and developed a system based on that, and I think it will make the world of navigation a lot clearer.”

“We track the vessel around the world, and based on where the ship is our system processes the historic positions in comparison to a digital database of ENC coverage, and fully automatically shoots off transactions to the data supplier, which in this case is Primar. We don't need any technical changes, our idea is to use thevcurrent S63 copyright protection scheme.”

The company has developed its own tracking system that uses the Iridium satellite network, while the service can also make use of data from an installed Inmarsat-C system.

“We have our own in-house development on that, and we have a redundant tracking system,” said Mr Amels.

“(Purplefinder) wouldn't work for us because the tracking system needs to be so interactive with the business-to-business structure and service system we have in our office. We're in much better control now that we have developed our own system.”

“We do use Inmarsat-C, which is used for LRIT, which will be mandatory this year, on a lot of vessels. They will have their software and services upgraded to a standard where we can use it as well, the Inmarsat-C network is open so we can also use their hardware to track as well.

We're using two tracking systems at the moment, just to make sure that we always know where the vessel is.”

“We have a web platform that allows the shipowner to use the tracking data for operational purposes if they want it, to monitor the ENC usage. We get a position report every one and a half hours, and that’s using one network only, using two networks we could probably have a position report every half an hour to an hour.”

The tracking device developed by the company is battery-powered and affixed to the vessel using magnets.

“We supply a battery operated tracker device, provided as part of the service,” said Mr Amels. “The battery should last in theory for four years, but we will replace them in two years.” “It can be fixed onboard by magnet, we ship it out by DHL. For one of the trial vessels we shipped out the device on a Monday, and on Thursday we saw the signal coming in. At the moment I think we have 50 tracker devices dispatched, which have all been reserved.”

“It's compatible with every ECDIS, we use the tracking system and really we don't need any particular connections to the ECDIS itself.”

Costs

With the position of the vessel being tracked, the licence period of the required ENC will then automatically begin when the system detects that the vessel has passed into the coverage area of the chart.

Licences will initially be purchased for a minimum period, and then automatically extended as required.

“Our system optimises the charge, in the sense that the first time it will order the licence for three months, and based on the frequency they use the chart it can later on change to six or twelve months,” said Mr Amels.

“We found that it's actually quite a lot cheaper this way than it was before.

Shipowners who have ordered all of Europe, for instance, would be much better off doing something like this.”

“(How much better off) depends, the least saving we have seen was 20 per cent, but we have seen a vessel which saved 50 per cent as well. We've seen cost savings depending on the trading pattern of the vessel of between 20 and 80 per cent.”

Mr Amels notes that differences in savings will be partially dependent upon the type of trade that the ship is involved in.

“We found out that vessels which spend more time as worldwide travelling vessels spend a lot less with this system as they use less approach and harbour scale charts,” he said.

“In coastal trade they go into a lot of ports, small ports, and for every port they need a harbour and an approach scale cell.

Our findings are that worldwide trading vessels are cheaper, they're better off costwise than, say, a short sea vessel.”

“You have administrative overheads in the entire distribution chain, the superintendents in the office have to approve when a chart is ordered, and that sort of thing. It's like a mobile phone where you have to pre-pay if you want to use the charts, and if the orders change and you want to go somewhere else, tough luck, you've already paid. We should really be  looking at post paid ways of distribution, where you pay for the chart when you use it.”

Datema is hopeful that showing a reduction in the cost of operating with ENCs will encourage shipowners to think more seriously about adopting the technology without having to be too concerned about adding huge extra costs to their operational budgets.

“You cannot blame the shipowner for not ordering all possible shelter ports on a specific voyage, there's an economic argument here,” said Mr Amels.

“We get enquiries in our office of guys asking for a world folio of ENCs. If we give them on honest answer on the cost they would be put off ECDIS forever I would say, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars per year for a world folio.”

“That's not fair, there's no way that a ship can enter all of the ports in the world in a year, so 90 per cent of the ENCs will go unused anyway.

A world folio is not really possible for ships, especially when we tell them it will cost $20,000 or $30,000, when we tell them that they say 'well, then we'll wait on ECDIS for a while'.”

Mr Amels also thinks that the automatic nature of the licensing system, having a whole world folio already available onboard the vessel, will create further benefits in terms of safety that should act as added encouragement to vessel operators to install ECDIS.

“E-Navigation is the buzz word at the moment, and one of the strategic targets of that is preventing distraction and overburdening of the navigator,” he said.

“Having to order charts in an emergency situation, I would say that this is overburdening,

the vessel would like to go to the port immediately rather than waiting for an hour for the chart.”

Datema believes that its service strikes a reasonable balance between these two issues of safety and cost reduction, and hopes that these kinds of innovations will help to fuel a rise in ECDIS adoption.

“We want to make life easy for the navigator, we want to prevent distraction and overburden, and while doing so we also want to improve safety at sea,” said Mr Amels.

“But on the other hand we also have the challenge of maintaining copyrights and ensuring integrity, there is a distribution network that is partly involved in producing ENCs and they should get fairly paid for this.”

“There is a chance to make ECDIS economically viable. When ECDIS is adopted I see it as a major safety factor, but if you have to pay $20,000 or $30,000 for a world folio of charts you probably won't buy an ECDIS.”

If Datema’s projected savings figures for ENC users do stand up to the scrutiny of further real-life usage, this innovation could certainly lead to a major shift in the way that electronic charts are licensed and paid for in the maritime market.

However, this is likely to be heavily dependent on wider agreement being reached at the Hydrographic Office level on the issue of having no charge for the use of ENCs for voyage planning.

The outcome of discussions at IC-ENC, and the response to UKHO’s request for “clarification” of the validity of this method, will be key in determining the impact that this technology may have on electronic navigation.

DS