Pay-as-you go electronic charts get green light

The ENCTrack service makes all available electronic navigational charts (ENCs) available to users when at sea or during passage planning, and uses a vessel tracking system to determine which charts should be paid for. It was originally unveiled at Nor-Shipping 2009, but there was considerable disagreement over the terms of licensing so the company was unable to operate ENCTrack outside the Baltic area.

Datema reports that the member countries of IC-ENC issued a limited approval for the use of its pay-as-you sail licensing system in 2010. There were a number of strict conditions attached to this trial, involving a number of tests that Datema had to perform. As a result, the final approval was granted in March 2011. Following the approval of IC-ENC, Datema has been able to significantly increase the coverage of its service.

Datema believes its service enhances safety at sea, because all charts are available at all times, eliminating the need for license management and allowing the ship to change plans for emergency and bad weather conditions at any time. Jelle Glas, Datema international sales manager, says: “The approval could not have come at a more opportune time, as the IMO has approved the amendments to SOLAS for the use of ECDIS and electronic charts from 2012. As the ENCTrack service addresses many of the existing issues surrounding the licensing of ENCs like inflexibility, pricing, training and license management, we expect mariners world wide to greet the service with great enthusiasm.”

The approval became effective from 1 April 2011, and ENCTrack will be re-launched at Nor-Shipping 2011.