International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 5

Number 2

June 2011

163

1 WHY A PORT ECDIS?!

1.1 Introduction

Ports are the hubs of global trade with the need of

the highest level of topographic and hydrographic

information to fulfil special requests regarding safe

and ease of navigation, manoeuvring, turning, dock-

ing, berthing et cetera. That takes into account the

special requirements Harbor Masters, Pilots, Ship

Officers, TUG operators, Transport Execution and

Port Maintenance have! This requirement should be

fulfilled by the Port Hydrographer! That‘s a real

challenge, because safe and efficient arri-

val/departure of ships and their cargo is most crucial

for ports!

Increase of vessel sizes versus less harbor and

manoeuvre space, Minimum Under Keel Clearance

and special requirements for minimum dredging call

for the highest level of accuracy and reliability of

digital chart information for navigation in fairways,

turning and port basins currently not met by equip-

ment according to SOLAS V Carriage requirements!

Enhance Berth to Berth Navigation Requires

High Quality ENC's – The Port ENC – a Proposal

for a New Port Related ENC Standard

D. Seefeldt

Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), former Head of the Geographic and Hydrographic

Department, retired end of 2009

Work Package Leader within the integrated European Research Project EFFORTS (Effective

Operation in ports); responsible for the Subproject Port ECDIS

ABSTRACT: The Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) was about 42 month, between May 2006 and October

2009, the work package leader for the Port ECDIS work package within the integrated European research pro-

ject named EFFORTS (Effective Operation in Ports). The Port ECDIS team was completed by the company's

SevenCs (Germany), CARIS BV (The Netherlands) and the ISSUS Martime Logistics / TUHH (Germany).

The HPA was responsible for the development of a proposal for a new Port ENC standard which can be used

for navigation in ports on board of vessels, in PPU's (Portable Pilot Units), in VTMI-Systems, in a state of the

art marine simulator, for port maintenance and other harbor related tasks. Masters and pilots approaching a

seaport usually use an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) to obtain the required navi-

gational information they need. Also the Harbor Master needs the same up-to-date information for the admis-

sion process and to organize a safe and ease navigation in the port area. The common ECDIS standard sup-

ports navigation in the open sea and coastal areas; the Inland ECDIS standard was developed for navigation

on inland waterways. The chart requirements for maneuvering big ships in confined waters like narrow fair-

ways (harbor access channels), turning and harbor basins, for port maintenance (dredging), fairway and chan-

nel design and construction work, for TUG operation and for traffic management (VTMIS) are not sufficient-

ly covered by the current ECDIS and Inland ECDIS standard with respect to chart scale, accuracy, chart

objects, attributes (“object catalogue”, in future "feature catalogue") and topicality and call for a special Port

ENC. Managing bigger vessels, increasing traffic, less harbor space, berth organization, dredging purposes

etc. requires accurate and up-to-date high-resolution geographic and bathymetric data to provide all necessary

information. The Port ENC it is not just about producing better electronic charts (the Port ENC or PENC) to

be shown in the navigation displays of various applications. Port-ECDIS addresses user groups of other do-

mains as well (maintenance, dredging, planning, simulation, engineering, TUG assistance, VTMIS, voyage or

route planning). Often they have the need to look at the data not only as a chart but also in 3D. That means

additional data representations are required. The Port ENC must be able to interact with other port related data

sources for a more beneficial use and to improve the interoperability of harbor related tasks. The Port ENC

could also play a fundamental role in the e-Navigation concept!

164

Fig. 1: The Port ENC component

The common IHO ECDIS standard for maritime

ENC’s supports navigation in the open sea, coastal

areas and in seaports (like the Port of Hamburg), the

Inland ECDIS standard for Inland ENC’s (IENCs)

and was developed for navigation on inland water-

ways and uses the same accuracy and quality defini-

tions like the maritime ECDIS standard, but both

without meeting the requirements ports have regard-

ing precise navigational, manoeuvring, berthing,

turning, docking, maintenance, up to-dateness, scale

and accuracy aspects!

Port ENC requirements go far beyond the current

maritime ECDIS and Inland ECDIS standards re-

garding up-to-dateness, quality, accuracy, large scale

charts, chart features/objects and attributes and reli-

ability of hydrographic data (Bathymetry) and geo-

graphic data (Topography). For Port operations,

there are special requirements for vertical and hori-

zontal accuracy. That is achieved by using modern

sensor technology. The same accuracy must be in-

herent in the underlying electronic charts, the Port

ENC’s. This type of source data (e.g., topography

and hydrographic data) has to be made available by

the Port Authorities using a standardized data for-

mat, the proposed Port ENC standard, because they

are responsible for this task. So the Port Authorities

as a kind of public institution should be an approved

Port ENC producer, I think!

At present, there is no standard or extensions con-

sidering the special requirements of port operations!

That calls for a specific “Port ECDIS”, the Port ENC

standard. The following figure shows the different

components of the Port ENC, including gridded ba-

thymetry and a 3D channel reference model and also

ready for using the 7Cs bathymetric ENC.

The Port ENC standard should be an independent

but complementary standard to maritime ENC and

Inland ENC (see below).

Fig. 2: ENC gradation including the Port ENC

The development of a Port ENC standard focuses

on high precision operations in ports. A Port ENC

intended to align with the ongoing developments for

maritime and Inland ENCs with respect to the new

IHO standard S100. And Port ENC data should

serve as the missing link between maritime and In-

land ENCs, because seaports are often the link be-

tween maritime and inland shipping.

Using a Port ENC as the base, it must be possible

to overlay other types of information to improve the

interoperability of harbor-related tasks, for example

navigation and ship – manoeuvring and docking by

Pilots using Portable Piloting Units (PPUs) includ-

ing the Port ENCs. Also the Port Authority can use

the Port ENC for dredging and maintenance activi-

ties at channels, piers and berths and the same Port

ENC can be used as base for traffic management and

route planning in the nautical centre (VTMIS).

1.2 IHO S57 and S44 Standards – comments

IHO Standards do not provide significant topograph-

ic source data for integration in ENC's. No dedicated

accuracy requirements are defined that apply for dif-

ferent navigational purposes / categories (e.g., port

operations). Within ENC's and Inland ENC’s, the

IHO S-57 Zone of Confidence (ZOC) assessment is

used to describe the quality of bathymetric data, but

the Zone of Confidence (ZOC) is not used for topo-

graphic data!

Fig. 3: Port ENC encoding guide proposal

The IHO S57 Standard and the latest IHO S44

Minimum Standard for hydrographic surveys should

be harmonized in terms of their accuracy data.

165

As in figure 3 shown, within the Port ENC we

combined accuracy arguments for the bathymetric

and topographic information and represent these two

classes with a Zone A or Zone B symbolisation. The

highest accuracy level for a Port ENC (Zone A) has

to fulfil IHO S44 Special Order Survey and a hori-

zontal and vertical accuracy for fixed topographical

objects relevant for berthing, docking et cetera better

than +/- 0,1 m. The second level (Zone B) has also

to fulfil S44 Special Order Survey and a topographic

accuracy level better than +/- 0,5 m. This is much

higher than in the current ECDIS standard!

An example is the official ENC of Hamburg, pro-

duced and issued by BSH (Federal Maritime and

Hydrographic Agency / Germany). It meets all the

relevant ENC related standards and fulfills the re-

quirements for maritime navigation (SOLAS V car-

riage requirements), but the ENC is too small in

scale, does not have any bathymetric detail, does not

show up-to-date information and includes poorly de-

fined horizontal accuracy for topographic features

such as quay walls, piers, pontoons, et cetera. A

comparison of the official maritime ENC and the

new developed Port ENC reveals the following: the

official maritime ENC is not suitable for special op-

erations within the port area! To be fair, the official

BSH - ENC has a different purpose to meet (usage

band 5 - harbor), but must be used as official ENC in

the Port of Hamburg to fulfil SOLAS V carriage re-

quirements.

2 THE PORT ECDIS WORK PACKAGE –

TASK OVERVIEW

Task 1 – Potential user requirements (Meetings,

workshops, structured questionnaire)

Task 2 - Port ENC - Technical specification

− accuracy; precision of topography and aids of

navigation; special new Port ENC objects (fea-

tures and attributes); precise 3D depth infor-

mation using Digital Terrain Models (DTM)

technologies; 3D gridded bathymetry, 3D refer-

ence DTM (the Channel Reference Model CRM)

Task 3 – Prototype of a Port ENC

− Port ENC dataset of the Port of Hamburg, includ-

ing precise Port ENC chart data, so named 3D

gridded bathymetry (in BAG format), bathymet-

ric ENC's (bENC) and a 3D channel reference

model (CRM).

Task 4 – Testing of prototype(s)

− Tests on board of HPA survey vessels; test using

a PPU on board of a container vessel, functional

tests onboard of a Trailer Suction Hopper Dredg-

er (TSHD) and during docking process of a cruise

liner.

Fig. 4: Port ENC + bENC (Bathymetric ENC)

Fig. 5: Port ENC + 3D Gridded Bathymetry

Fig. 6: Port ENC- calculated safety depth

Fig. 7: 3D Gridded bathymetry data versus CRM

166

Fig. 8: 3D gridded bathymetry data versus CRM

The figures 4 – 8 giving an overview about the

results specified in Task 2 of the Port ECDIS work

package.

Task 5 – Defining requirements for follow-up de-

velopments and standardization (Port ENC -

Roadmap).

− The Port ENC can be used as base information

within a PORTIS (Port Information System)

which also includes AIS, Radar, VTMIS, Route

Planning, dredging information, river and port

basin maintenance information, current and ve-

locity, tidal information etc. Follow-up work to

enhance the prototype, widen its application and

organise standardisation was described.

− Port ENC can also be used in Marine Simulators

(ship handling, tug simulator…) et cetera.

3 PORT ECDIS WORK PACKAGE RESULTS -

OVERVIEW

− The outcome of the Port ECDIS work package

was a proposal and comprehensive concept as ba-

sis and input for European / international stand-

ardization proved by validation and functional

tests in the Port of Hamburg. We produced a pa-

per about the "Definition of present Data Quality

in Standards used for ENC data (S57 versus S44

standard) – current situation" and some Port ENC

specification documents like a "Port ENC Feature

Catalogue", a "Port ENC Encoding guide (repre-

sentation and symbolisation) and the "Port ENC

Product specification". A Port ENC prototype

(software and dataset) of the Port of Hamburg in-

cluding a Port ENC viewer was also developed.

We made a lot of very successful tests using the

Port ENC prototype (based on basic dataset). All

the tests running very successful, delivering very

promising results and demonstrating the outstand-

ing quality and accuracy of the developed Port

ENC (report)!! At least we wrote a "Port ENC

follow-up requirements document".

− The very successful result of the EFFORTS work

package 1.3 - Port ECDIS could be only a pro-

posal and comprehensive concept for a new Port

ENC standard. It can be currently only a first

step.

− The results were distributed to a lot of official

bodies like IHO, IMO, IALA, IHMA, IMPA et

cetera and should be discussed also within the

global Port and Harbor community and with nav-

igation related organizations (currently started). I

think main Ports like Singapore, Rotterdam et

cetera and also Hamburg should produce their

own precise Port ENCs, because they are respon-

sible for safe and ease of navigation in the port

area. The Hamburg Port Authority thinks about

how to set it up best.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The outcome of the Port ECDIS work package was a

proposal and comprehensive concept as basis for Eu-

ropean and international standardization proved by

validation and functional tests in the Port of Ham-

burg.

The Geographic and Hydrographic Department of

the Hamburg Port Authority produced a very precise

and up to date Port ENC test dataset of the Port of

Hamburg area which meets the user requirements of

the involved nautical participants like Harbor Mas-

ters, Pilots and Port maintenance bodies like dredg-

ing, TUG operators, marine simulator and others.

The definition and scope of the IMO draft strate-

gy for the development and implementation of E-

Navigation focused on marine information on board

and ashore by electronic means to enhance berth to

berth navigation and related services. So I think, the

Port ENC can play an important role and could/must

be a core component for E-Navigation

REFERENCES

IHO Publications, Standards and Specifications:

S52, S57, INT 1, S100 et cetera.

SEEFELDT, D., HOFFMANN, R., ROWAN, E.: Port ECDIS

– Enhanced ENC Standard for Port Operations, Hydro In-

ternational, Vol. 14, Sept./Oct. 2010, p. 19-23, 2010.

Links:

http://www.hamburg-port-authority.de/presse-und-

aktuelles/aktuelle-themen.html

http://www.efforts-project.org/index.html