Advancing the Safety, Security, and Efficiency of the Marine Transportation System
The Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN) is a command within the Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate. It brings together a unique set of specialists and capabilities to data in support of waterways management activities. Located in Alexandria, Virginia, the NAVCEN’s team of 53 uniformed and civilian members is drawn from technical domains including prevention and afloat officers, operations specialists, data analysts, and programmers. This diverse group of experts provides information products and services for waterways managers and users that inform maritime governance and improve the safety and efficiency of the Marine Transportation System (MTS).
NAVCEN is on the forefront of the effort to update and inform decision-making within waterways management by developing systems to provide quantitative rigor to historically qualitative waterways assessments. At the same time, it presents spatial representation of existing Marine Safety Information (MSI).
One example of NAVCEN’s efforts to facilitate data-driven decision-making is the analysts’ employment of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to review vessel movements and illustrate waterway use. These examinations of historical vessel data help identify emergent trends in an area of operations and can also be used to ensure broadcast AIS compliance. NAVCEN data products have helped waterways managers determine sites for new anchorages, graphically present marine closure areas for space launch and recovery activities, develop traffic routing measures, and engage with port partners and stakeholders.
To further bolster the safety and efficiency of the MTS, NAVCEN’s Waterways Risk Assessment Division facilitates Ports and Waterways Safety Assessment (PAWSA) workshops across the United States. The primary objective of these workshops is to improve the cooperation between government agencies and the private sector. Workshop participants, including port partners and stakeholders, work collaboratively to identify risk factors within a given waterway and evaluate potential mitigations. Participants are dynamically engaged to ensure environmental, public safety, and economic impacts are fully represented when identifying risk interventions.
NAVCEN is also involved in the distribution of navigation safety information products. Its Marine Safety Information Distribution Division manages a dedicated website that is critical to the Coast Guard’s ability to publicly release MSI and data products to waterway users. The division continuously maintains and updates the website to ensure the timely and reliable dissemination of navigation information including: the Light List, Local Notice to Mariners, International Ice Patrol products, GPS Ephemeris Data, GPS Constellation status information, and public notices for bridges.
Team members at NAVCEN are also responsible for receiving inquiries and reports from MTS stakeholders and civil GPS users. Operations specialists assigned to NAVCEN maintain a 24-hour watch to ensure the reliability of critical systems including GPS and vessel tracking. These watch standers monitor the performance of the Long-Range Information and Tracking (LRIT) system and receive disruption reports from civil GPS users, coordinating the response with partner agencies.
Since its origins managing the Omega navigation system, a worldwide radio system used primarily for maritime navigation and operated from 1968 to 1997, NAVCEN has continuously evolved over the decades to modernize navigation information services for maritime professionals. Today, it centralizes the various capabilities and areas of expertise necessary to provide waterway managers and users the means to make data-driven decisions with authoritative and accessible information products. In the future, NAVCEN’s tradition of innovation will continue to provide waterways managers and stakeholders the tools needed to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex and technology-driven MTS.
About the author of this article, LT Kristopher Eleazer:
He graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 2018. Upon commissioning, he reported to the Coast Guard Cutter FORWARD, a 270-foot medium endurance cutter homeported in Portsmouth, Virginia, serving as the ship’s assistant navigator. In 2020, he transferred to Marine Safety Detachment Panama City, Florida, as an apprentice marine inspector. In 2023, he transferred to his current unit, the Coast Guard Navigation Center, and serves as a waterways risk assessment project officer.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of The Coast Guard Journal of Safety & Security at Sea: Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council and appears here by kind permission of the Editor.
Rapporteur: Paul Ridgway
