Cambridge-based data visualization company GeoSpock is collaborating with the Baltic Exchange to build the world’s most advanced maritime spatial database.
"This digital initiative will have a specific focus on shipping emissions, enabling members and the wider maritime market to have unrivaled access to data insights and visualizations," said Baltic Exchange, which is a membership organization for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts.
Baltic Exchange CEO, Mark Jackson said: “As our market embraces digital technologies, the Baltic is in a unique position to facilitate the industry’s digital growth. To achieve this, it is imperative that we adopt and utilize the most advanced technology and develop the most holistic database available to our industry."
“The database we are building with GeoSpock will act as a hub of information that can be constantly added to and improved on, but more importantly, interacted with. We believe it will set a global standard for a stronger data strategy in the shipping industry,” he added.
GeoSpock CEO, Richard Baker said: “GeoSpock is delighted to be working with the Baltic Exchange on this project, this is something we are uniquely built for and incredibly excited to be involved in."
“We believe this new partnership will set a gold standard for the industry to follow. Analytics at this scale has the capability to improve not just the industry, but to make the world less polluted and more prosperous,” he added.
Shipping currently generates huge quantities of data, whether it is onboard ships, in port, or through the wider logistics chain. Presently, this data is siloed, with no central pool that the industry can utilise.
This new initiative aims to change that. In addition to data specific to shipping emissions such as fuel usage, voyage route and journey time, wider information on details such as location and weather will also be captured. These datasets will allow the industry to make more informed decisions when developing emissions initiatives.
Companies will be able to analyze and optimize shipping on a global scale, while providing regulators and governments with a new level of transparency.
The datasets and data science tools will be designed and built by GeoSpock. The GeoSpock Spatial Big Data platform, built on AWS Cloud, will be able to ingest and provide context to huge quantities of global maritime data provided by Baltic Exchange members and industry participants.
