Mapping Marine Traffic

Esri's interactive map U.S. Vessel Traffic offers a captivating visualization of activity on U.S. waterways, underscoring the vital role marine traffic plays in commerce, travel, and environmental management. Over the past decade, vessel traffic in the U.S. has seen significant growth, with annual cargo shipments reaching 2.3 billion tons.

Esri's interactive map leverages Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to track and categorize various vessel types, including cargo, fishing, passenger, military, pleasure, and tanker traffic. Users can zoom into specific ports or regions to observe dense, bright tracks that illustrate common routes and congestion points. The map’s design is both visually striking and highly functional, featuring neon-colored ship tracks against a dark basemap to emphasize movement patterns. 

Customizable filters for vessel type and time period allow users to tailor their view, enabling trend analysis from 2015 to the present. Furthermore, the ability to download ship track data based on geographic and temporal parameters enhances the map's utility for marine researchers and planners.

For a broader perspective MarineTraffic offers a global live map of major shipping lanes. The MarineTraffic tracking map includes an option to overlay a density map, which displays accumulated data on global shipping traffic over recent years. Activating the 'Density Maps' overlay reveals fascinating insights into the world's shipping activity.

Interestingly, gaps in the marine traffic density map can be just as informative as the recorded tracks. These voids may reflect global geopolitical influences (such as military conflicts), piracy threats, or localized shipping conditions.

Another remarkable tool for exploring global shipping routes is Shipmap.org, an animated interactive map that visualizes the movements of the global merchant fleet over the course of a year. Using AIS shipping data from exactEarth, the map displays the movements of different cargo ship types throughout 2012.

Shipmap.org allows users to filter vessels by cargo type, offering a detailed look at various shipping patterns. The accompanying narrated tour highlights intriguing trends in the worldwide merchant shipping trade, making it a truly engaging resource for understanding the dynamics of global marine traffic.