20
Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCC)
Maritime Safety and Rescue Emergency Response Tools & EDS
Several European Coastguards in charge of Search and Rescue (SAR), marine pollution prevention and response rely on RPS Ocean Science emergency response tools (OILMAP, SARMAP, CHEMMAP) to fulfil their mission.
For more than 15 years, RPS has customized its modelling tools to adapt to custom mission critical requirements, to search and rescue missing people at sea and to respond to oil spill incidents in European waters. To effectively deploy assets at sea to respond to marine emergencies, RPS has been supporting several European Coastguards with training and software development, and by implementing RPS’ Environmental Data Server (EDS) in charge of collecting a large array of environmental datasets and distributing it to Several Maritime Rescue Coordination operators.
To ensure the operational readiness of responders, RPS assisted several Coastguards in developing on-line training material for various locations covering both scientific and technical concepts of SAR, oil, and HNS pollution response. By implementing EDS, responders have access to near-real-time access to an array of winds and current, both observations (drifters, HF Radar, offshore moorings) and predictions at global, regional and local scales.
Timeline
2002
In 2002, OILMAP & SARMAP was implemented in several European coastguards.
2007
In 2007, RPS implemented the EDS (Environmental Data Server).
2008
In 2008, RPS developed the online e-training material Virtual Use.
2012
In 2012, several EU coastguards acquired CHEMMAP for HNS response.
2013
From 2013-2018, new SARMAP functionalities including live database of Search & Rescue Live Units (SRU) are implemented.
2013
From 2013-2018, regular additions of European water metocean data sources into EDS, and implementations of the EDS Viewer (Oceansmap) were completed.
Key Details
Project Name
Maritime Safety and Rescue Emergency Response Tools & EDS
Client
Several European Coastguards
Sectors
- Maritime transport
- Security and safety
- Information and telecommunications
- Vessel traffic services - VTS
Location
- European waters
Services Provided
- Marine Emergency Response
- Data management and analysis
- Spatial intelligence and GIS
- Software Development
- Modelling
Challenge
Key maritime safety agencies in Europe cover high-traffic maritime areas, coordinating with other European and North African Maritime agencies, to provide advice and technical support to other countries. Whether it's for a SAR or marine counter-pollution mission, operators rely on RPS operational response tools such as OILMAP and SARMAP to make informed decisions and improve the deployment of response resources. RPS modelling software is operational in each of several Maritime Rescue Coordination (MRCC) Centres and distributed to different maritime regions (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Canary Islands) requiring constant software development to adapt different technical improvements to ensure each SAR/pollution responder has been properly trained with access to the latest metocean information.
Solution
With over two decades of experience in working with many SAR Agencies worldwide, RPS software programmers and technical staff has improved its expertise in marine emergency response. RPS has been able to assist by implementing new functionalities into its response software to address specific technical requirements to improve the response at sea such as facilitating the communication between operators, SAR planners and responders-at-sea.
Project Statistics
1341
professionals in the workforce, including fleet
5000
emergencies coordinated
617
qualified staff trained in RPS software and EDS usage over the past 10 years
99
people assisted daily, on average, in 2017
145,189
vessels identified in the Traffic Separation Schemes in 2017
315,033
vessels monitored in 2017
598
environmental interventions
Key contacts
