Vessel Finder
marinetraffic24.com
marinetraffic24.com
I started it and so far I got nice visualizations of air and maritime traffic. I should resume it when I find some time.
Conclusion was that yes, you can predict locations of the terminals, but it's quite hard to find and produce repetitive schedules from the data because it requires the ships not change their schedule for too long, and the reality is just too dynamic to properly predict this.
For seagoing vessels I expect that they have more predictable schedules, but the hard part there is knowing container volumes, because there is no way to predict from public data what the volume of containers loaded/discharged is at a specific terminal. The closest metric is measuring the turnaround time of the ship, but that is not a great predictor for number of containers moved because handling times per container will differ per port, as will the number of cranes assigned to the ship, as will the ratio between 20ft and 40ft boxes, as well as the capability per port to do twinning (picking up 2x20ft boxes in one handling) and dual-cycling (discharging and loading a container as part of the same crane cycle).
Basically: it's a tough problem, with too many variables you cannot reasonably deduce.
(Also, even if you have the container volumes, I personally think the highest potential for optimization is in the hinterland, but that's a different story altogether)
It's doable for a competitor. AIS has the vessels depth. If you assume the weight of a container to be similar you can monitor the vessels depth as they discharge and then load containers. You'll have to account for bunkering, empty containers, etc. Still, it's doable.
There's also some data (not sure if public, should be easy for any shipping company) for anything going to the US. You can use that data to further improve the previous estimates. See https://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/trade-data/united-stat.... Interestingly the JOC is terrible at predicting future trends despite having one of the most detailed data on their trade.
Note: the method above will not give you exact numbers. It's not actually needed to know the exact numbers, seeing the trends and the fluctuations/changes is already quite useful.
But I’m guessing that adjusting for bunkering is tricky since they might fuel up more in ports where fuel is cheaper, so you cannot assume they will be nearly empty close to every port they call. Would love to know if guessing based on this is actually being used though.
(note that if one has access to SWIFT data, one can not only watch the goods transported in one direction but also the payments flowing in the other.)
In other graphs, I believe California has (had?) superior petrol environmental standards to the rest of the US because its pipeline network is largely independent: https://www.api.org/~/media/Oil-and-Natural-Gas-images/Pipel...
In yet other graphs, Great War mobilisation was largely a function of the rail networks. To this day, it's possible to buy a "rail" ticket between finland and sweden that winds up "air gapped" via bus transfer.
It's not so different from the Soviets choosing an ever so slightly different caliber for their mortars so it's not compatible with the ones from NATO.
Can’t find the link now but I read a fascinating article about the German and Russian use of railways on the WW2 Eastern Front. Long story short IIRC: the Russian rail network was primitive by German standards, primarily lacking the automated signalling that allowed relatively high speed trains. Primitive, but it still worked and was very resilient to damage. The Russians destroyed a lot of their railways as they retreated and could quickly rebuild it when their fortunes changed.
Also, the Russians operated their trains using a centralised planning function that could prioritise strategically important routes and cargoes. In contrast, senior German commanders could in effect commandeer trains to support their local tactical needs, sometimes playing havoc with the overall network.
Ships are classified into size-based categories. For example, a "capesize" vessel is a massive dry bulk ship of 100,000+ ton (and often much bigger) carrying capacity. Since they are the largest ships, there are many fewer of them in the world, they are size-restricted on the ports that they can visit, it is only economical to carry particular types of cargo in these volumes, and because of the volumes, the ports often sit close to the source.
Now, when you collect AIS data for capesize ships, you'll see trade lanes from Australia to China - these mostly carry Iron Ore from Australia's Pilbara region to steel/etc. factories in China (companies like Rio Tinto, BHP and FMG focus on this space). You'll see a similar trade lane from Brazil to China - this is also iron ore and led by a company called Vale. By analysing the trade lanes, cross referencing that with the raw materials that come out of each company, using Google Maps to investigate what the ships might be loading, etc., you can infer what the vessels carry and begin to extrapolate these routes. The same applies for many types of commodities, and is not limited to dry bulk.
It can be easier in some cases to figure out the trading routes for ocean transportation of containers because the carriers often publish their routes in advance, but this obviously doesn't apply to the rail and trucking side of things, containers are often transported a fair distance before reaching a port, and containers will often be trans-shipped (i.e., transferred from one vessel to another at a hub port like Singapore), so it will be difficult to find the root nodes here.
As you go down in vessel size, it gets harder. A small ship like a "handysize" could carry anything really - grain, potash, windmills, yachts (yachts often aren't insurable when crossing the open ocean so the owners typically have them shipped around the world instead). And there are tons of them. And their cargoes might be shipped long distances to the port. You can still find these nodes of course, but it will take a lot more work.
[2]: https://www.spinergie.com/
[3]: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/products/eikon-trading-software...
Curious, there seems to be a 'center of gravity' in new upstarts in the space in France- why is this?
Cue the I'm an admiral / I'm a lighthouse "give way" joke[1]. As of 2020 we've learned (open source: reuters) that naval vessels may be deadly in hot wars, but don't do so well in full and frank discussions ('shouldering' when grey on grey) with either cargo vessels or arctic-hulled vessels.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPqtwV5utUY
Back in fax-spam days, the USN even officially responded to this joke:
“The first time I heard of it was — oh, let’s see, how long — about 10 years ago or so, I think. That story’s so old,” [LANTFLT spokesman, Cmdr. Kevin] Wensing said, “it probably started out back in the galleon days, or back when there was a big lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt.”
So next time there is a war, just send dem cargo ships.
Unarmed cruise ship 1, Venezuelan navy 0.
As a sailboat you are the stand-on vessel so you really shouldn't maneuver. They will see you. They can and frequently do make course adjustments to avoid other traffic.
https://ptyc.net/wp-content/uploads/Do-Sailing-Vessels-Alway...
That said, I’ve been yelled at while racing when crossing ferry pilots. I had the right of way and they had the tonnage.
This is my space. A very crowded space, and incredibly chaotic, where data is outright wrong most of the time.
Personally, I don't prediction should be the end goal of these analyses, tracking and anomaly prediction would give more insight to the traders etc.
But of course I would only say this cause prediction is hard in this space.
DL (Deep Learning) Et al. don't really help. Traditional stats is more likely to be helpful in this case.
I am in the process of adding an uplink from my AIS650 on my boat to also send data received while underway, but need to finish up some other projects first.
I do not have much use for the commercial data side of this, but looking at past routes of various pleasure craft going to or from places I want to go can be informative for planning routes.
[1] https://www.blackhat.com/docs/asia-14/materials/Balduzzi/Asi...
The link is currently: https://marinetraffic24.com/pt/vesselfinder/
The English language page is: https://marinetraffic24.com/vesselfinder/
Hopefully a moderator like dang can edit the link.
Seems to work as expected in Chrome.
http://map.openseamap.org/?zoom=9&lat=35.98913&lon=-5.41849&...
https://books.google.ch/books?id=nUtLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA...
meant that submarines used to be able to pass in both directions with engines off.
Still physically possible, but no longer worthwhile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23548220
(this also makes obvious why the Suez Crisis was so important. I use it as a marker for the UK/US hegemony boundary.)