Chartworx Holland, News September 2006

Second ECDIS Stakeholders Forum 12 – 13 September 2006 Monaco

 in conjunction with 10^th WEND Meeting.

During the first ECDIS Stakeholders meeting that took place in Rostock (Germany) 6 and 7 September 2005 in conjunction with the 17^th meeting of the Committee on Hydrographic Requirements for Information Systems (CHRIS), the ECDIS Stakeholders asked to consider the next meeting  be held in conjunction with the Worldwide ENC Data base Committee (WEND). This would enable the Stakeholders to discuss in particular their “hottest” item, the Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC’s) and the related problems. Very kindly the IHB and the WEND committee thus organised a Stakeholders Forum halfway through the recent WEND annual meeting.

Also present at the meeting were Vice-Admiral Alexandros Maratos, Director and President of the Directing Committee of the IHB and Rear-Admiral Kenneth Barbor, one of the other directors of the Directing Committee.

Welcome and Introduction.

The attendees were welcomed by Admiral Ken Barbor who mentioned that the number of hydrographers outnumbered the stakeholders which was entirely the intention.

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Horst Hecht, Head of the Nautical Hydrographic Department of the Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH), who mentioned that the present gathering was the largest at the IHB apart from the 5 yearly held conferences of the IHO member states. He emphasised that both the IHO and the Industry were working on the same issue and that the Industry was desperately needed to provide both expertise and software. ECDIS is not just a system only regulated and specified by the IHO.  He considered cooperation with the Industry vital. Hydrographic Offices (HO’s) will not be able to cope with all the present technical development but HO’s will remain being necessary to provide official data. We need to row the boat together in the same direction and we have to listen to each other. We are both stakeholders you as an industry and we as HO’s.

Agenda.

The agenda for the meeting covered primarily 4 main items, being ENC coverage, availability and consistency, ENC distribution, licensing and pricing, ECDIS migration and Community Involvement and Discussion Forums.

All items were related to the WEND agenda and the outcome would be discussed by WEND during the last day of their meeting.

ENC Coverage, Availability and Consistency.

A presentation “Worldwide Chart Coverage: Current Status and Future Developments” was presented by Mr. Tony Pharaoh of the IHB. He mentioned that a comprehensive online catalogue is being developed. It was noted that the number of ENC’s available has grown significantly. The new catalogue will only show those ENC’s that are actually available on the shelf either from a Regional ENC Centre (RENC) or from an HO. Also the Raster Navigational Charts (RNC's) for those areas where ENC coverage does not exist and a list of “adequate backup” of paper charts will be shown. An interface will be developed that will enable the HO’s and RENC’s to login and update the system. The development of a comprehensive online catalogue of available official charts has been endorsed by NAV51 of the IMO.

The Stakeholders…..

The presentation resulted in numerous questions being fired to the “officials”. The answers revealed that there is still a lot to be sorted out before this catalogue can go “on air”. There is a necessity to define what “adequate” back up arrangements are. It is essential that a user knows what paper chart is covered by an ENC, so that he knows what paper chart he can leave at home. There is a Correspondence Group IHO/IMO looking into this but there are yet no written requirements of the IMO. The catalogue will be finalised in 2008 and than be offered to IMO and the IHO member states. It has not been decided yet whether BA charts, American or national charts are going to be listed in the catalogue. This will be discussed with the national authorities and will eventually be decided by the coastal states.

The Chairman concluded that this would be a very complex matter and should possibly be left to the Marine Safety Authorities.

The stakeholders are unanimous in their request that if the catalogue becomes available the most important issue is that HO’s and RENC’s keep the catalogue up to date.

Route (ENC) coverage.

A question by the Chair whether the Stakeholders consider the present route coverage adequate triggered many questions. In general it appears that coverage is yet not adequate for the majority of ship operators. One can not expect the user to frequently switch between ENC and paper chart. It  therefore made little sense to attendees that the IMO is considering making ECDIS carriage  mandatory. For ECDIS you need data and it is only useful if you have data for the whole voyage. A ship operator described the voyages carried out by his (cruise) shipping line. From South America along the US coast up to Alaska. He stated that it is not possible to show paper charts on a mandatory ECDIS. One of the attendees mentioned that it is all very well to discuss prioritising routes but it remains a simple matter of funding. Not all HO’s are in a position to invest in the production of ENC’s for their areas of responsibility.

Regarding the mandatory carriage of ECDIS it was advised that a proposal has been tabled by Norway and Denmark to assign three routes, fully covered with ENC’s, where ECDIS should be mandatory. These routes were picked as “low risk routes”. The IMO will carry out a risk assessment.

The Chair concluded that it is obvious that we need complete route coverage. It will be difficult to prioritise but it would be useful if stakeholders could advise regarding both routes and priorities. It is clear that HO’s need funding to produce ENC’s. The IHO will exercise influence on governments of member states to provide funding to their HO’s.

ENC Consistency or Inconsistency?

According to the representatives of the RENC’s present it may be concluded that the consistency policy has improved over the past period. But it will still take some time until this problem will be fully solved.

The Stakeholders…..

One of the stakeholders mentioned that he has heard this story for many years. However symbols and navaids from ENC from bordering countries do still not show up at the same scale. And we cannot explain to the users that the problem is being worked on. We have been telling this too long. It confuses the man on the bridge as has no means to see what is right or what is wrong. Consequently he may not trust his ECDIS anymore. A simple solution might be to highlight the border between two adjacent cells of different HO’s. A mariner will then understand the differences as he is used to see differences when he changes from one paper chart to another. Another solution could be to give the RENC’s the right to harmonise the data. In some years the delivering HO’s will have solved these problems bilateral and it will not be necessary for the RENC’s to line up the data anymore.

A most annoying source of inconsistency is that there is little uniformity in scale levels and the display of objects. The Channel is a good example where detailed depth figures are shown on a smaller scale on the English side compared with the adjacent French cells. Uniformity could be achieved by HO’s by agreeing upon the use of identical “Scamin” in adjacent (boundary) cells. Another solution could be to make Scamin a function in ECDIS.

The officials………  

If you take the removal of inconsistencies out of the hands of the HO, you will risk that the problem will continue. This is a management problem for the HO’s and if we want to see improvement we must ask them to take care of consistency.  If nations chose the RENC way of distribution, the RENC’s could advise the HO’s to harmonise the data but should have no right to apply corrections themselves. There is also the aspect of legal liability.

The Chair wraps up the discussion with the remark that it is clear that the recommendations of the RENC’s to the HO’s are sufficient. Furthermore we are aware that many HO’s have already, through bilateral agreements, achieved consistency in adjacent border cells. We have to encourage the use of Scamin and harmonising the setting of this parameter. We can not accept traffic separation zones only be partly shown on one scale and, in the adjacent ENC, the other part in another scale setting. This matter will be taken forward to the appropriate IHO working group.

Research on use of ECDIS and ENC among users.

This paper was presented by Mr. Igor Karnicnik of the Geodetic Institute of Slovenia and based on a questionnaire sent out to mariners, hydrographers and other experts, ECDIS manufacturers and ENC producers. Of the 381 questionnaires sent, 87 were returned. An interesting presentation although with a (partly) predictable recommendations e.g. increase ENC production (and make them available!), reduce the price of ECDIS and ENC’s to stimulate use, simplify the distribution and licensing, licensing by use and no mandatory yearly subscription. Interesting to note that the author also, in order to stimulate use, recommended the mandatory use of ECDIS.

It is a pity that of the 87 returns only a few came from ECDIS users. Mr. Karnicnik was advised to  resurvey this issue in the not too distant future.

A letter from one of the major ship owners.

Mr. George Arts, of Marine Press of Canada, presented a letter from one of the major shipping companies, with the request to present this letter to the WEND committee and the ECDIS stakeholders forum.

He mentioned that this was not the first letter he presented. During the previous Stakeholder meetings he had presented 5 other letters, all from major shipping companies, that all had the same message. The letter of this shipping company, operating about 400 vessels, may be summarised as follows. The company will discontinue the use of ECDIS with official digital charts because of the ever changing international standards for official systems, the variety in formats of ECDIS systems, and the lack of compatibility between various products produced by various HO’s. The fact that systems often crash caused by incompatible formats, requiring the navigating officer to dive under a console, while steaming through the Channel with a speed of 25 knots does not prove to come up to expectations of the ENC safety aspect. Furthermore it shows in practice that comparison between the digital product and the paper chart is constant necessary.

The Shipping Company also mentioned in their letter that, on average, they spent 2000 USD on paper charts, added with 4500 USD for ARCS, per year. If they eventually would change over to ENC to meet their chart coverage requirement, it would cost 40.000 USD to 50.000 USD per vessel. That is 6 to 8 times more per ship than being invested at the moment. It is therefore that the company has decided to discontinue the use of ARCS and use C-MAP and Transas instead. The company also observed that their observation that only 1 percent of the SOLAS shipping is using ECDIS does not contribute much to the cause either. The letter emphasizes that the Shipping companies are more than willing to use electronic charts but not at any price. The cost must be in perspective with the market. Hopefully the participants of the WEND meeting will soon come with some firm statements regarding this issue which will help the further development of ENC’s. In itself, the letter mentiones, the ENC, official or un-official, is a magnificent tool and it would be a pity if further progress would be delayed.

The Chair noted that the new standard for data was discussed at length during the previous ECDIS Stakeholders Forum at Rostock. The industry had influence in this decision. We need confirmation that only 1 percent of SOLAS is using ECDIS. The end user wants a considerable price reduction. We appreciate the suggestion by the Shipping Company to join forces with the IHO to find a solution.

One of the representatives of a major commercial data and ECDIS supplier confirmed the increase of delivery to shipping companies. He proposed that HO’s should consider to make more use of commercial companies to increase the production of ENC’s.

A representative of a shipping company mentioned that his company is operating 19 ships of which 18 are fitted with ECDIS. 16 ships use ENC of which only 3 are subscriptions. If these ships go somewhere for which we have not acquired ENC, we use paper charts as it is much too expensive to use ENC on routes not regularly sailed.

Pay for ENC per use…..

An interesting proposal was tabled by Mr. George Arts from Marine Press of Canada.

He started with showing the audience that in some cases extremely high and unrealistic prices have to be paid for ENC particularly for ships that operate world wide. He showed that in some cases trying to obtain world wide chart coverage with a maximum of available official digital products supplemented by paper charts resulted in yearly cost of over 50.000 US dollars per ship.  This may lead to customers trying to reduce on their number of ENC’s or stick to paper charts. In general ships carry between 300 and 1400 paper charts. They sometimes stay valid for many years, are less expensive, offer more flexibility and can be transferred from ship to ship

To arrive to more realistic costs, he proposed to use a “pay per use” system. The system being based on a daily fee per used ENC, the use being reported and invoiced annually. It can be shown that on average this will result in a cost of about 15.000 US dollars per vessel per year. Probably ships operating in regional waters would likely prefer a pro rata licensing scheme while ships operating in international waters may prefer a pay per use system. George underlined that this system could be most beneficial for the HO’s. It does not consider the ENC’s as the basis for the business but looks at it from a customer service, taking in consideration the customer’s capacity to pay. This could ultimately  result in far greater revenues for the HO’s than rendered by the present policy.

Dynamic licensing of ENC’s

Mr. Tor Svanes, CEO, C-MAP Norway proposed a simple cost-effective and user-friendly method of licensing of ENC’s. His ‘dynamic licensing’ system would provide for fully automatic licensing of ENC’s and offer licenses valid for a period of three, six, nine or twelve months. ENC’s that are not used any more are not re-licensed where those currently in use are automatically re-licensed It would be based on the principle that the customer pay per three-month minimum period whilst working in a particular area. The licensing system uses the, by DNV certified, C-MAP ENC SENC distribution, and could be accessed either by internet of email and be made available within one to two months after initiation.

SENC distribution

Mr. Tor Svanes presentation triggered an interesting discussion about SENC distribution.

 The representatives of the two RENC’s emphasized that it was required to prove that ENC data is not lost in the process to make a SENC and that this had to be certified by a notifying body. It was also mentioned that it must be clear to the user to see the difference between official ENC’s and commercial ENC’s when combined in one SENC.

The implementation of these requirements was confirmed by the major commercial data producers present at the meeting.

Privacy

Mr. Michael Bergmann (Jeppesen Marine) asked attention for the fact that distributors were required to provide information about their clients to the HO’s and the RENC’s. In some countries this may be considered to be in conflict with privacy laws. It is also not clear why this information is required.

The Chair concluded this session of the meeting with the remark that the HO’s and RENC’s may expect the user community wanting to acquire ECDIS and ENC at the lowest price. It would therefore not be wise to follow a high price policy. Naturally shipping companies try to reduce their prices but we cannot accept the service provider to get nothing. We should consider the whole chain and investigate if the product can be made available at a more cost effective rate. We should furthermore pay more attention to the licensing.

ECDIS migration and the transfer of S57.3.1 into S100 and the encryption standard S63.

This topic was introduced by Dr. Lee Alexander who briefly outlined what had been discussed during the 1^st ECDIS Stakeholders meeting last year regarding the new S100 standard (note of the author – see the report on the IHO website).

It was emphasized that S 100 will not be developed isolated by the hydrographers.

Several of the attendees expressed their concern about the stability of the ECDIS concept.

The Chairman mentioned that although the new standard will not come into force before 2012, and the IHO will keep to that, he was sceptical whether it would be possible to keeping this time of stability up to 2012. We need to extend the present standard such that it can support some additional data in the mean time. We need to come with some strategy to accommodate the big change in 2012. We need to think about it now and also the industry has to prepare for the change.

During the following discussion it became apparent that the intended change to

The S 100 standard will probably not affect the new ECDIS production specifications as developed by the IMO. The CHRIS committee will be approached to confirm this.  It was also mentioned that the necessary (S-100) test data should be provided.

Mr. Frode Klepsvik, the Norwegian Hydrographer commented that although we are all for S100, he supported the concern of the Industry regarding stability. Not only for the ECDIS user side but also regarding the ENC production. Stability does also relate to the HO’s. The new standard will require investments necessary for new developments by the HO’s. Many HO’s may not be able to bear this cost. In the mean time they are still supposed to continue their S57 production.

A representative of the industry mentioned that in his view the whole distribution scheme is jeopardized by the announced introduction of S100. Industry is always prepared for a change. But is the IHO prepared to accept the changes that S100 will require.

The Chairman answered that it has been stated that S100 will change the world not only for the industry but also for the distribution by the IHO. As a result from a long discussion it became clear that there will be upwards compatibility from S57 to S100. This according to the Chairman is already a call for stability. S57 will not become obsolete. The present database will not be changed. It will just be recorded in another format.

It was proposed by the President of the IHB that before advising the IMO about the intended change to S100, the CHRIS committee should be asked to come with an insurance that S100 is not going to affect the recently revised IMO ECDIS Performance Standards or future ECDIS carriage.

The Chairman concludes the session stating that we need a clear position about when and how we migrate to S101 (the future  ENC Product Specifications). So we need to clarify whether there are any risks with regard to the existing ECDIS systems and we need confirmation that S 57 ENC’s will not become obsolete. We also need to agree on a migration policy within the IHO. This may well be some time ahead of us but we need to know the consequences. We do hope that at the next ECDIS Stakeholders Forum, the results of the study by CHRIS will be known.

S63, the IHO encryption standard.

Mr. Robert Sandvik, the Chairman of the Data Protection Scheme Working Group, presented the status of S63, the technical standard defining how ENC are digitally signed and protected. He emphasised that S63 does not define any commercial conditions for the ENC distribution. That remains the responsibility of the data servers. S 63 is available on the IHO website and support is available through the Open ECDIS Forum (OEF). A software kernel is available in Java. Although the data servers are ready for transition, not all end users have been properly upgraded. The new IMO ECDIS Performance standard will make reference to S63 and the new ECDIS test specifications (IEC 61174) will include assessment of compliance with S63. A test data set will be available by March 2007.

A new version 1.1 of S63 is underway and will be presented to the CHRIS committee in February 2007. A final review will take place in March and publication is expected by the end of March 2007.

The representative of CIRM, Mr. Michael Rambaut, who is not anymore the secretary of IEC 61174 mentioned that it is recommended to add an important annex to this publication that describes what has been changed and inform the type approval authorities accordingly. It is unacceptable that a complete new ‘type approval’ would be required. We have to wait with all this until the MSC has approved the new ECDIS product specifications.

Mr. Gert Büttgenbach of SevenC’s expresses his concern about the latest development of S63. He considers that S63 an accident and unlike many other ECDIS standards it is not serving its purpose. SENC distribution is of course the future but unfortunately not all systems will accept SENC. A solution could be S63 ‘extended’ (S63x). This has been developed by the industry under his guidance. This is a workable industry standard and meets the needs of the market and the needs of the officials. S63 according to Gert Büttgenbach is an optional feature that will not affect a standard IHO regulation nor the ECDIS type approval. But we must prevent that the use of this new feature will be ruled out in the new edition of the ECDIS test specifications (IEC 61174). Dr. Lee Alexander mentioned that he was Chair of the group that developed IEC 61174. The test specifications should cover the minimum requirements and not the additional facilities. Asked for a set implementation date of S63, Robert Sandvik mentioned that there are many ECDIS systems and that there are no ways yet to make the use S63 mandatory for the OEM’s and the end users. The Chair stated that the problem will only go away for future systems meeting the new IEC 61174.

Regarding the type approval issue Mr. Michael Rambaut of CIRM mentioned that it was his impression that BSH gave the manufacturers a hard time with the type approval. Their implementation of the specifications goes further than what was actually required.

The Chairman agreed to carry the message on although this is not an issue of the IHO in general

Mr. Mike Rambaut also drew the attention of the stakeholders to the fact that customers may move their ECDIS all over the place from one ship to another. There is no trace where they are or whether their charts are still up to date neither is there a mechanism to ensure that their software is maintained. This has been discussed with the organizations to establish some way of getting control.

Mr. Michael Bergmann of Jeppesen Marine mentioned that we first have to find out what the benefits are for the users by upgrading their systems. This has to be determined first.

In conclusion the Chairman stated that the end user has to request for the necessary upgrades and it is probably up to the IEC, maybe in consultation with the IMO, to facilitate this. If the customer will not upgrade his system to accept S63, then nothing will happen and S63 will not be used. When asked none of the stakeholders had any objections to the introduction of the scheme as proposed by Mr. Robert Sandvik.

The Open ECDIS Forum. (OEF).

Dr. Lee Alexander gave a short overview of the history of the OEF. The OEF has been used extensively over the past years in discussions particularly by OEM’s an experts in relation with the ECDIS standards. Presently it is a bit quiet apart from the Inland ECDIS Harmonisation Group making often use of the facility offered by the site to exchange ideas and proposals. The OEF was originally introduced by Gert Büttgenbach and passed over to the IHO. It is now being maintained on behalf of the IHO by the University of New Hampshire for a yearly fee of 10.000 US dollars to over the technical maintenance of the website carried out by an employee of the university. 

The Chairman mentioned that he had been approached by the Chairman of CHRIS with the question whether there is a need from the IHO for the OEF.

This started a lively discussion. Mr. Bernd Birklhuber of the Ministry of Transport of Austria brought forward that the Inland ECDIS community would like the OEF to continue for some more years, as they were using it very actively. The Chair mentioned that it was also used by the S63 group. It proved that the IHO is also hosting several other discussion forums e.g. for the hydrographic dictionary, the IHO standards for hydrographic surveys (S44) etc.  Gert Büttgenbach stated that the OEF came first, many years before the IHO forums. He considered the OEF an important facility to discuss something outside the IHO. Capt. Rod Nairn of the Australian HO stated that although he agreed with the idea, he considered the cost to maintain the OEF too high. It could be done for 50 US dollars per month.

The Chairman concluded that it seems that there is a need to continue at least for the time being. The question is who is going to pay for it. We will pass this question on to the CHRIS committee.

Inland ECDIS.

Mr. Bernd Birklhuber, Chairman of the Inland ECDIS Harmonisation Group gave a brief overview of the status of inland ECDIS. The Inland ENC group was founded in 2003. Participants are the US, Canada, Europe and Russia. The aim was the development of a common standard. Last year the European Union adopted a directive of River Information Systems (RIS) in the EU. There are binding standards for inland ENC’s. The member states are obliged to provide inland ENC for all major waterways in Europe. The ENC are pure S57 and are currently available for 13.000 kilometres. Over 2500 vessels are equipped with inland ENC in Europe. We have started to establish a digital inland register in accordance with the future IHO requirements. The developed harmonized encoding guide for inland ECDIS is already in use in some countries. It is expected that by mid 2007 all ENC in Europe and the US will be produced in accordance with the harmonized standard for inland ECDIS. Inland ECDIS systems are capable of using normal ENC as well.

The Chairman stated that he was impressed that so many vessels are using inland ENC and noted with pleasure that inland ENC will be registered under the IHO regime for S100.

Any other business.

Various speakers used the opportunity to express their views regarding the subjects discussed during this Stakeholders forum. Some mentioned that they were most happy with this forum but felt that an important group, the end users were missing. More shipping companies should have been invited. The IHB commented that several shipping companies had been invited.

A major chart agent mentioned that he was most disappointed. We see no concrete action. It is all too complex. We see it from the decision of the major shipping companies to discontinue the use of official digital data. They were in fact they early users of this new technology but now have lost interest as we do not give them what we have promised. And now we are even mandating them to use S63.

The Chairman replies that the purpose of this meeting is to agree on common interests. The interests of the IHO, the Industry and the end user seem to be quite diverse. We have a requirement for stability. We have tried during this meeting to address the problems. We are doing our utmost to take this up in a positive way. What we decide is subject to the approval of the IHO member states. The IHO is a regulated community.

Piracy

The representative of NDI, Mr. Mohammad Al Zaibak,  tabled the subject of Piracy of official data. The unauthorized copying of data, provided initially by the HO’s, deprives the governments and HO’s of income that could be used to improve coverage and expanding updating. He proposed that the member states consider a measure of imposing penalty measures against companies that produce products derived from HO’s without proper authorisation. HO’s could seek for partners to fund such measures. Furthermore he suggested that member states could approach the industry for investments to increase ENC coverage

The Chairman comments that mechanisms to prevent piracy like S63 should be used. He also mentions that major companies like C-MAP and Transas are already partners of several HO’s.

Proposed follow on actions of the IHO.

Define which are key shipping routes for ENC coverage (WEND Task Group).

Look into the alternatives to obtaining funding such as bilateral / multilateral arrangements between HO’s (IHB).

Provide assistance to those member state governments who may need information about the importance of completing ENC production / coverage (IHB).

Provide guidance to all HO’s to harmonise the use of Scamin for providing a clear display (CHRIS).

Determine an appropriate way to warn users of possible inconsistencies, e.g. in highlighting boarders between adjacent ENC cells, until consistency is achieved. (CHRIS).

Conduct a study of the level of ENC use on board SOLAS vessels (RENC).

Lowering the cost to the end user does not require a change in ENC pricing by the HO’s. More flexible licensing is the key (licensing bodies).

Review the current information requirements for licensing in terms of maintaining privacy (licensing bodies).

Update of IHO Information Paper on S57.4 taking in account current development of S-100 (IHB to invite CHRIS).

Conduct a study on the impact of S-101 (future ENC production specifications) on all ECDIS stakeholders (IHB to invite CHRIS).

Confirm that the customization of S-63 (i.e. S-63x) will not be restricted or cause a problem in ECDIS (IHB to invite IEC).

IEC to communicate with IMO regarding the need to develop a mechanism to deal with software changes to required SOLAS equipment (IHB to invite IEC).

Open ECDIS shall be continued for the time being under the present regime (IHB).

Next meeting.

It was suggested that the next meeting be held at a location with many shipping companies. Mr. Michel Huet (IHB) mentioned that the next CHRIS meeting would be held in November 2007 in Rotterdam during Europort Maritime 2007. The stakeholders agreed to have the next ECDIS stakeholders Forum in conjunction with the CHRIS meeting.

Close of meeting.

The Chairman closed the meeting stating that he considered the meeting productive and that it hopefully served the interest of getting ECDIS promoted in the maritime field. The outcome may not satisfy everybody but we have to accept the conditions and rules under which the IHO operates. We hope that you have been convinced of our good will.

Note of the author.

With almost 50 representatives of the IHO and 34 Stakeholders the meeting provided an unique opportunity for the industry to share their concern about the ECDIS standards and the coverage, distribution, pricing  and licensing of ENC’s with those responsible for these matters. Although there is no doubt that the IHO will take this seriously, it is hoped\, in particular in the interest of ECDIS,  that we will see some improvements before the next meeting