Why LRIT?

The concept of Long-Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) was borne out of the incidence of recent terrorist activity in the USA. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) introduced the ISPS-code in 2003 and began a dialog about a system to receive daily position reports from ships at sea as an aspect of Marine Safety.

LRIT is designed to ensure that ships provide daily position reports, at a basic rate of every 6 hours (i.e. 4 times a day). Contracting Governments are entitled to receive LRIT data from vessels up to 1000 nm from their coasts.

What is LRIT?

From the concept a detailed system specification was created outlining all aspects of the system. It clearly defines a flow of data from the ship (which must provide a regular ship position report) via a communications service provider to a National or Regional Data Centre, which acts on behalf of the Flag State to which the ship is registered. The Data Centre is the repository of all of the Flag’s LRIT information e.g. ship positional data, and is connected to the wider International LRIT system via the International Data Exchange (IDE) using a specific LRIT communications protocol

The full system specification is detailed in the IMO resolution documents that you will find on our IMO Resolutions page.

Who is affected by LRIT?

LRIT is implemented under SOLAS V/19-1. LRIT requires Ship owners to ensure provision of compliant shipborne equipment meeting the applicable LRIT regulations.

The LRIT regulation will apply to the following ship types engaged on international voyages:

• All passenger ships including high speed craft
• Cargo ships, including high speed craft (and yatchs) of 300 gross tonnage and above
• Mobile offshore drilling units

There is an exemption for ships which operate entirely within coastal Sea Area A1 and are fitted with an Automatic Identification System. While ships operating in near-coastal Sea Area A2 not fitted with Inmarsat C GMDSS will be required to fit a compliant terminal, ships operating in polar Sea Area A4 above 70 degrees latitude will require a non-Inmarsat terminal that operates in conjunction with a low-earth orbit Communication Service Provider (CSP) approved by the Flag in conjunction with its appointed Application Service Provider (ASP).

Any vessel that is required to transmit LRIT data (see the Ship Operators section for more details) must be able to do so by 31 December 2008 or by the first radio survey after this date.

For ships operating in Sea Area A4, the regulation states that this should be no later than the first radio survey after 1 July 2009.

The terminal must be capable of being configured to transmit the following minimum information set in an Automatic Position Report (APR):

• The ship-borne equipment id
• The GNSS position (latitude and longitude) of the ship (based on the WGS 84 datum)
• The date and time associated with the GNSS position.

In addition, the terminal must be able to respond to polling for an on-demand position report and be able immediately to respond to instructions to modify the automatic position report interval to a frequency of a maximum of one every 15 minutes. APR's will be transmitted as a minimum 4 times per day to a National Data Centre (NDC), a Cooperative Data Centre (CDC), or a Regional Data Centre (RDC) nominated by the Flag.

What happens on July 1st 2009?

When the LRIT system goes live (on the 1st July 2009) the ship-borne equipment should be set to automatically transmit the ship’s LRIT information at 6-hour intervals to the LRIT Data Centre identified by the Administration.