Fleet Management System Using Google Earth

Applied Weather Technology, Inc. (AWT), announced the worldwide launch of GlobalView, an innovative new fleet management system that combines AWT’s industry-leading ship routing services and software with Google Earth technology to give 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 utilize Google Earth technology—this brings a significant innovation to ship routing technology,” said Skip Vaccarello, president and CEO for AWT. “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 color-coded icons that can be customized 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.

Reducing Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions
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 optimization software save the shipping industry approximately 365,000 metric tons (MT) of fuel annually. This translates to potential cost savings of more than $166m per year and reduction of 1,162,000 MT in CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing 258,000 cars from the road.

Averting Severe Weather and Ocean Conditions
With GlobalView, fleet managers can 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.
 
Avoiding Regions Known for Pirate Activity
GlobalView also provides historical pirate attack data so that the information is readily available to fleet managers. With GlobalView, fleet managers can access information about pirate activity showing all the regions where their vessels are traveling. GlobalView 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 color 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.