One of the many tools ShipTracks offers is Archive Mode for incident investigation and checking historical activity. As electronic tools increase they provide investigators with empirical data. With this feature you can look at AIS playback trails for extended periods of time and view snapshot of what happened in a region during a certain time period.
Sometimes ships run aground, collide between each other, gain demurrage costs and so on. You and your team may want to know what caused the vessel to get in the incident and get detailed information of the event to corroborate facts. AIS comes in to play because it provides accurate historical data.
One great use for ShipTracks is to contest on demurrage costs. The ability alone to access historical data and contest the length a vessel spent on a terminal pays for the service and more. Given the data is accurate it is easy to dive into the region and pull details for the vessel’s length of stay.
You can also track what happened in a region without specifying a vessel. You will get details about which vessels were in the region and at what time. Later you can add them to the list of vessels you want to get data for in order to dissect their voyage in detail. Using this AIS playback method can give you an idea of the amount of vessel activity around infrastructure and locations of interest.
