America's ship-tracking challenge

Long before a ship is within eye sight of Newport Harbor, a radio signal alerts a computer in a small, one-room office 20 miles away in Warren, R.I. that it's approaching.

That information is then fed onto the Internet. Back in Newport, Capt. Paul Costabile looks at his computer and knows in an instant that a ship is heading into his port.

"It allows us to be in the office and to see where ships are and make estimates about their time of arrival," says Captain Costabile, who is in charge of piloting ships around Narragansett Bay. "And sometimes ships come up that aren't expected, and we can find out what's going on."

The US Coast Guard was mandated by Congress in 2002 to enhance the security of the nation's ports and waterways through a Nationwide Automatic Information System (NAIS). The technology would give all homeland security officials an instant understanding of where every large ship is located in American waters. But this system isn't expected to be completed until 2014, in part, because the cost is estimated at more than $200 million.

With no government AIS capability in Newport, or in most of the rest of the country, Costabile is using a private, nonprofit version. It was set up in less than six months for $50,000 and covers the coast from Maine to New York.

"What we're doing is filling a gap," says Moses Calouro, CEO of Maritime Information Systems in Warren. "If there's any ship out there you have questions about, you have access to the information at your fingertips."

The Coast Guard's slow pace of implementing the system is not only related to the high costs of bureaucratic government versus the efficiency of the private market, it's also about challenges that the combination of terrorism and technology present to the people charged with safeguarding the nation. After 9/11, security officials recognized that AIS could be a vital national security tool.

"AIS capability is a cornerstone for establishing 'marine domain awareness,' which describes our ability to know what's happening in the maritime environment and to identify activities and potential factors that could influence all kinds of threats to the national security," says Cmdr. Keith Ingalsbe, deputy project director of NAIS.

AIS was first developed in the late 1990's as a tool to aid navigation. Since 2004, the deadline set by the International Marine Organization, all large commercial ships have been required to have the equipment, which sends a radio signal carrying the name, type, size, and exact location of the ship. AIS was conceived as an advanced navigational tool that could help ship mariners and harbor pilots avoid collisions and guide traffic safely with a few clicks on a computer.

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