MarineTraffic, NAPA join forces on fleet optimization

Advanced voyage planning and weather routing among services on the drawing board.    Global ship-tracking company MarineTraffic and maritime software, services and data analysis provider NAPA have agreed to collaborate on the development of advanced voyage planning, optimization and analysis services for the shipping industry.
   The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding setting out their plans for such new services as post-voyage analysis reporting and weather routing.
   “The collaboration makes NAPA’s vessel-specific performance-modeling and weather-routing algorithms available to vast numbers of new users,” said Pekka Pakkanen, NAPA’s director of development. “Transparency and collaboration are a must for truly improving the operational efficiency of shipping, and we believe this partnership is a major milestone in achieving that.”
   Among the products and services the companies will work on are a system to allow ship operators to examine alternative fuel-saving routes as well as port-congestion forecasts.
   NAPA, headquartered in Finland, said it will provide its detailed ship performance, analytics and naval architecture expertise, including fuel- consumption estimates and weather-routing algorithms. MarineTraffic, based in Greece, will provide ship-tracking data, event algorithms and technical support.