Lockheed Martine to Provide Waterway Safety System for 2004 Olympics

Lockheed Martin will provide an extension to the Greek National Vessel Traffic Management Information System (VTMIS) under a $1 million sub-contract from the Hellenic Telecommunications & Electronics industry, INTRACOM. The extension will support the country’s port security infrastructure for the 2004 Olympic Games. The Games are expected to bring 16,000 athletes and more than four million spectators to Greece. Numerous spectators are expected to move daily through the ferry ports of Rafina and Lavrio, located on the east coast of the Greek peninsula, which will be equipped with new regional Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) monitoring centers. Lockheed Martin will provide two radar systems to help monitor the waterway during the Olympic Games. One radar will be located at Evia Island across from the new Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Center. It will provide coverage for the port of Rafina, which is the second biggest ferry port of the greater Athens region. The other radar will be located near the port of Lavrio, where it is expected that thousands of visitors will board ferries to tourist destinations during the Olympic events. The systems will be integrated with the existing VTMIS, which includes 11 coastal marine radar systems, three regional VTS centers and one national VTMIS center based in Piraeus. The entire safety system covers areas of the Ionian and Aegean Seas. The customer for the VTMIS extension is the Hellenic Ministry of Merchant Marine. The Olympic Games National Fund will finance the extension. INTRACOM is the project’s prime contractor and is responsible for providing the telecommunication and computing hardware, closed-circuit television links, and infra-red and daylight cameras; installing the necessary VTMIS technology equipment supplied by Lockheed Martin; and providing the appropriate training to Hellenic Coast Guard personnel. Lockheed Martin has similar VTMIS technology that it is installing or has installed in 14 countries including the Gulf of Suez in Egypt, the Qiongzhou Channel in China and Bahia Blanca in Argentina. Lockheed Martin also is the VTMIS provider to the United States Coast Guard under its Ports and Waterways Safety System and is currently upgrading the system in New York Harbor.