LM begins VTS installation at three more U.S. ports

Sea Power, Apr 2003

The Coast Guard has authorized Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems to begin installing the Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) system in three more U.S. ports to upgrade the maritime safety and surveillance capabilities of those ports.

The new VTS systems-which have a combined value of $24 million-are slated for installation in New York/New Jersey on the East Coast and in the Houston/Galveston and Port Arthur port complexes in Texas. All are scheduled to be in place by 2004. The VTS systembuilt under the Ports and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS) integration contract awarded in 1998-already has been installed in the ports of Valdez, Alaska; Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.; New Orleans, La.; and Berwick Bay, La.

Lockheed Martin originally designed the VTS system to help the Coast Guard carry out its maritime-safety and environmental-protection missions, but the system's proven ability to identify, track, and monitor all ships transiting a port area is now being exploited to support the service's increasingly important homeland-security mission as well.

The VTS system being installed in New York will include a vessel traffic center on Staten Island and 13 radars positioned along the East and Hudson Rivers up to the George Washington Bridge, on waterways connecting New York City to Port Elizabeth and Newark, N.J., and in the approaches to New York Harbor from Sandy Hook, N.J., to the Verrazano Bridge. Ships equipped with Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders-which help the Coast Guard maintain a continuous track of shipping in the harbor-will be able to go through portof-entry processes more quickly than ships without AIS transponders.

Coast Guard officials said that, by reducing the risk of collisions in ports and congested waterways, the VTS system also will help to protect the U.S. coastal environment.