Introduction

The Automatic Identification System was originally developed by the International Maritime Organization in 2004 to prevent collisions between large vessels. This system requires all commercial ships (gross tonnage greater than 300) and passenger ships to broadcast their position and other characteristics via ground stations and satellites. The resulting data is highly complex as it includes dynamic information on ship movements (position and speed), and static information on ship characteristics and voyage-related attributes.

Although AIS was originally developed to maintain safety at sea, recent work by IMF researchers has highlighted its potential to nowcast economic statistics, with a particular focus on trade. Most relevantly, Arslanalp, Koepke and Verschuur (2019) conducted a study to track daily merchandise trade at the port-level in the Pacific Islands.

This branch of work will build on these initiatives by adapting and improving on the methodologies to derive high-frequency maritime statistics for the Pacific Island Countries (PICs).

AIS Density Map

The maps show the density of AIS messages collected within the Exclusive Economic Zone of each PIC (blue line). The white circles point to port locations. To view the density maps, choose the layer (cargo, tankers, passengers, fishing, and others) from the upper-right button of the map.

Federated States of Micronesia

Fiji

Kiribati

Marshall Islands

Nauru

Palau

Papua New Guinea

Samoa

Solomon Islands

Tonga

Tuvalu

Vanuatu

Sources: AIS data from UN Global Platform; EEZ geojson file from Pacific Data hub; port locations from IMF.

Additional Resources

• AIS Handbook, Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics

  Data for this analysis is available through the UN Global Platform, which also hosts a dedicated working group to promote the use of AIS data to derive economic indicators.