FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)AIS stands for Automatic Identification System. It was introduced by the IMO (International Maritime Organization) to improve safety in the maritime traffic. All ships equipped with AIS transponders exchange their current movement data such as position, course and speed as well as other additional information via the VHF channels 87B and 88B. In professional shipping, the system is already part of the equipment requirements for SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea).
For vessels on international voyages AIS is mandatory from the registered tonnage (RT) of 300. For vessels on national voyages it is mandatory from 500 RT. For passenger ships the regulation is as follows:
International voyages:
National voyages:
Vessel name, callsign, MMSI number (user ID), IMO number, position, course over ground, speed over ground, true heading, rate of turn, length, beam, draught, type of vessel, navigational status, destination and estimated time of arrival.
Blue - Ship is moving
Orange - Ship is not moving
Our AIS network is still being expanded. Currently it does not cover all the regions you might be looking for. We are always interested in favourable new antenna locations. If you would like to cooperate with us to cover your region, please contact us.
We can highlight the vessels which are most interesting to you, for example by displaying them in a different color. Please contact us.
We can give you the data in almost any format (XML, CSV, etc.). It all depends on your needs. Contact us.
All the information in our database comes directly from the ships via AIS. If the data entered in the AIS transponder on board is not correct, then the information in our database might also be incorrect. However, as AIS information will be validated more and more by the authorities, in the future (nearly) all the information should be correct.
In our database you can find all those vessels which we have received AIS data from. This means that the following vessels might be missing:
The AIS system limits ship names to a maximum length of 20 characters. Therefore, longer names are often abbreviated or cut off at the end. For example, the German authority boat "Bürgermeister Weichmann" can be found as "BUERGERMEISTER WEICH" in our system.
Green - Ship is moving
Red - Ship is not moving
White - Course and movement status is not yet clear, because we have received very little information from the ship.
You have opened our KMZ file more than once in Google Earth. In the folder "Places" under "My Places" or "Temporary Places", there are probably more than one file named "vesseltracker_xxxx.kmz" or "vesseltrackerlight.kmz". You should remove all but one of these files.
Press the keys <Ctrl>+<F>, then enter the ship's name into the search field that comes up on the left side-bar, and press Enter. Google Earth now shows you the ship you are looking for in the list.
For AIS Tracking with vesseltracker you need at least Google Earth version 4! Please check which version you have and update to version 4 if applicable.
You find the online update function in the "Help" menu under "Check for Updates Online".
For all problems with google earth we wrote a step-by-step manual (only available in german for now). download manual
Please register for our Free Account. Then you can upload your photos and comment on them. Click here to register now.
We use the following ranking criteria:
For each of these criteria a maximum score of 100% can be reached.
We have only those vessels in our database, that have an AIS transponder and have visited our covered areas.
At the moment it is not yet possible to add missing vessels manually.
