As part of a Sea Traffic Management (STM) validation project, Costa Crociere, part of Carnival Corp, integrated Costa and Aida ships to exchange information with other players, by STM supported standardised formats and interfaces.
After verifying operations with the initial ships, the rest of the Carnival Corp’s fleet has now been added to the programme.
STM support was developed in the Carnival Fleet Operation Centre where operators monitor and supports all cruise ships in the company. Costa developed STM support as part of its operations centre software, Neptune.
This new Neptune functionality allows Carnival to interact with other STM services, ports and shore centre operators, and to evaluate voyage optimisation suggestions received by shore centres through the maritime digital infrastructure.
As part of the setup, Carnival ships share their voyage plans automatically with Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) along the route.
“Carnival’s advanced Fleet Operation Centre is a good example of how a proprietary ecosystem can be connected to interact with external services via STM. Costa´s contributions in bringing STM forward are most valuable to the project and to the maritime industry at large,” said STM testbed manager, Björn Andreasson.
“With our Fleet Operation Centres we have further increased safety on board our ships and with STM, we can use solution to share voyage plans with all other STM enabled services, such as route optimisation and Vessel Traffic Services to create a shared situational awareness,” said Franco Caraffi, IT Director Carnival Maritime, part of Information Technology Costa Group.
The STM Validation project goal was to provide its functionality to 300 ships but with the entire Carnival fleet, the figure is now almost 400. The other ships have been equipped by Wärtsilä Voyage, Furuno and Adveto, as an integrated part of their ECDIS.
