“We are continuously striving to optimize data inputs for users of our newly upgraded Orbit vessel performance platform to improve business decision-making. With this goal in mind, we engaged Maritime Data as a trustworthy partner to contribute its specialist expertise in data procurement for the industry,” says OrbitMI’s Chief Marketing Officer David Levy.
Assuring Quality of Data Inputs
Maritime Data is a UK-based start-up founded in 2022 by Co-Founders Rory Proud and James Littlejohn with a mission to address the difficulties in sourcing, evaluating, and buying maritime data by acting as a specialized intermediary between buyer and supplier.
As a data broker, Maritime Data supports companies in the maritime ecosystem from concept to contract. This enables clients to quickly understand all available solutions relevant to their requirements, evaluate comparable options, and contract with their suppliers of choice. All with the aim to minimize the effort required and give time back to the people building solutions needed to tackle the industry’s biggest challenges. Buying data is made easier.
Backed by more than 15 years of experience in the sector, Maritime Data has built up an extensive partner network of over 50 maritime intelligence suppliers and 200-plus product offerings in areas such as vessel tracking, emissions calculation, seaborne cargo flows, risk and compliance, port activity, trade statistics, weather, and vessel ownership.
“The quality of data being inputted into any model, process, or technology will have a meaningful impact on output. It is therefore essential for maritime technology companies to meaningfully evaluate all of their data inputs to ensure their solution provides the most accurate service for their customers,” explains Maritime Data’s Co-Founder James Littlejohn.
Tackling Sourcing Challenges
The joint project has focused on tackling the challenges of acquiring the right AIS data arising from discrepancies in datasets offered by various vendors that make assessment and evaluation difficult for data buyers.
Real-time data generated by the Automatic Identification System (AIS) is considered the X-axis for any evaluation of vessel operations and is a fundamental data layer for performance monitoring as it shows position, course, and speed, which can be combined with weather data to optimize operations, according to James Littlejohn.
However, AIS is extremely data-heavy, with hundreds of millions of data points being generated by thousands of vessels across the globe every day, which requires commensurately massive computational resources to ingest and analyze this data.
New Vendor Evaluation Protocol
Under the joint project, Maritime Data conducted a comparative assessment of four leading AIS data providers using a newly developed evaluation protocol to ascertain the quality of their respective offerings based on carefully designed criteria.
Maritime Data was able to take samples of a week of AIS data from each of the four providers and measure each dataset against various benchmarks provided by OrbitMI to help determine the coverage, accuracy, and frequency of the respective feeds.
A segment of these samples was then taken and split out over 80 different geolocations that were visualized as polygons on a map to show geographical coverage.
Heavyweight Analytics
James Littlejohn points out that conducting this process of comparison and evaluation with such vast amounts of data would entail a lot of time and resources for a maritime technology firm such as OrbitMI, leading to opportunity cost, while it took Maritime Data about a month to complete the analysis – and this time is likely to be shortened in future as the process becomes more efficient. He says that independent validation of the supplier selection process enabled this to be conducted more quickly and without bias in favor of any one data vendor.
“The outcome of the process was exactly as we expected, and piloting this tool with OrbitMI has given us a springboard for further development and application of the selection protocol. This enabled OrbitMI to proceed with a decision on AIS sourcing secure in the knowledge that the data would fulfill the needs of its customers,” James Littlejohn says.
Selecting the Ideal AIS Data Provider
At the end of the process, OrbitMI selected Lloyd’s List Intelligence as its AIS data provider. “Lloyd’s List Intelligence has been a long-time and valued partner of ours,” says Ali Riaz, OrbitMI’s CEO. “The quality and versatility of their data offerings, assurances of data accuracy, customer service, and commitment to collaboration compared to the other offerings were unbeatable.”
This decision aligns with Lloyd’s List Intelligence’s strategic vision for the industry. Tom Richmond, Head of Software & Technology Sales at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, elaborates: “Working with innovators like OrbitMI is part of our strategic plan to help the shipping industry move beyond siloed thinking and kick-start a more collaborative, connected approach to integrating seaborne trade in the global supply chain. We’re happy to support innovation with high-quality products at a price point that stimulates collaboration in the sector.”
OrbitMI’s David Levy concludes: “This project demonstrates we are prioritizing data quality for our clients by harnessing the power of partnership with a leading player. The AIS data quality assurance process piloted by OrbitMI with Maritime Data will benefit users of the new Orbit platform by ensuring optimized and reliable data inputs covering the global fleet.”
