Long Range Identification and Tracking to become carriage requirement in near future

LRIT stands for Long Range Identification and Tracking. As a result of “New York 9/11”, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) introduced the ISPS-code in 2003 and continued to talk about a system to receive daily position reports from ships at sea. In May 2006 the Maritime Safety Committee of the IMO decided that LRIT will become a carriage requirement in the near future.

LRIT ensures that ships will provide daily position reports, presently at a rate of every 6 hours. Ship owners are not bearing the costs of transmitting those position reports and it is assumed that the SSAS (Ship’s Security Alert Systems) on board are equipped to do this LRIT reporting. In general no additional equipment is required, but maybe some software update, an occasional replacement of a very early Inmarsat-C model and some new LRIT equipment on vessels sailing in Sea Areas A1+A2. The reported data will be available to flag states, port states and coastal states. The authorities requesting position reports will pay for the data and the international infrastructure.

The experience with the public availability of AIS data has learned that the LRIT system should use different communication methods and that the integrity of the position reports is ensured and only made available to the flag state-, port state and coastal state authorities and Search and Rescue organizations. Coastal states are entitled to receive LRIT data from vessels up to 1000 nm from their coasts.

For this data handling a new worldwide IT infrastructure has to be built and controlled via an International LRIT Data Exchange. It collects data from national, regional or cooperative LRIT databases. This Exchange stores the flag state instructions and provides the requested data to the authorized parties. Therefore all IMO contracting governments are requested to supply information, how to handle LRIT data of their flagged vessels. Those instructions are contained in the LRIT Data Distribution Plan which becomes the operational guidance for the International LRIT Data Exchange.

The LRIT system is described in the Performance Standard and Functional requirements Res MSC.210(81), which has been modified by IMO MSC.83 (2-12 october 2007). For more details contact Radio Holland.

The LRIT infrastructure and procedures is a complicated process with a lot of aspects, operational, legislative and political, below please find a list of important bullet points.

  • LRIT in force by 1 January 2008 and operational by 31 December 2008
  • Apply to ships (international voyages) constructed on or after 31 December 2008
    • Passenger ships including high speed passenger craft
    • Cargo ships including high speed craft of 300gt and upwards
    • Mobile Offshore Drilling Units
  • Ships constructed before 31 December 2008
  • Sailing in A1+A2+A3 First Radio survey after 31 December 2008
  • Sailing in A1+A2+A3+A4 First Radio Survey after 1 July 2009
  • Exemptions: Ships sailing exclusively in Sea Area A1 fitted with Class A AIS.
  • LRIT systems are subject to type approval contrary to SSAS systems.
  • LRIT info used for safety (search and rescue) and environmental purposes.

The amended SOLAS regulations on LRIT will raise a lot of questions within the shipping market. Radio Holland is following the developments within IMO closely in order to provide up to date information to our customers. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us!

contactperson : Henk Middelkoop