Improved Maritime Statistics with Big Data an Evaluation

Purpose and goal

The main goal of the project has been to evaluate whether or not AIS data can be used to renew and improve the maritime statistics. The project has shown clearly that this is the case: ship lists based on AIS data can make it easier for the ports to provide data for official statistics purposes, and AIS data can be used to improve and refine the distance matrix between ports which is used for many maritime statistics calculations. The project has also identified several other possible uses of AIS data for other statistical areas than maritime statistics.

Results and expected effects

The project has given a clear indication that AIS can be very useful for the production of maritime statistics (and other statistics of similar nature). Different methods for processing AIS data have been tested, which lays a good foundation for future development work.

Approach and implementation

The project has been conducted by a group of experts from Transport Analysis and Statistics Sweden. Their expertises fit well with the problems addressed by the project: maritime statistics, use of geographical information systems for producing statistics, and statistical methodology. The work has been carried out in five work packages, the first on accessing data and the last on dissemination of the results. It took more time than expected to access data, but the time plan as a whole has been met. The results have been presented at seminars at Transport Analysis and Statistics Sweden.