AlongRoute Data

The global maritime industry contributes nearly 3% of total GHG emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the EU have introduced stringent policies, such as the IMO's 2050 Decarbonization Strategy and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), aimed at drastically reducing emissions from shipping. These regulations impose ambitious carbon intensity reduction targets, carbon pricing schemes and significant fines for non-compliance, placing increasing financial and operational pressure on shipping stakeholders. Despite the availability of weather-based ship routing solutions designed to optimize voyages and reduce fuel consumption, their effectiveness is severely hampered by the poor accuracy of existing marine weather forecasts. Traditional numerical models struggle to capture the complex dynamics of ocean conditions - such as wave patterns, surface currents and wind variations - resulting in unreliable forecasts, especially during heavy seas and over long forecast horizons. As a result, captains are often reluctant to follow suggested, optimized routes because they often do not match observed conditions are sea. This widespread mistrust results in missed opportunities, as expensive routing systems that theoretically promise up to 20% fuel savings, often support an average of only 3% reductions in practice, causing frustration and financial loss for shipping companies that invest in them.

AlongRoute introduces a groundbreaking AI-powered and EO-based marine weather intelligence system that directly addresses these challenges by providing unparalleled forecast/data/insights accuracy and reliability. Using cutting-edge artificial intelligence, our system integrates data from multiple sources, including satellite observations, in-situ buoy measurements and reanalysis datasets, to deliver highly accurate forecasts/data/insights to be used within existing and newly developed voyage optimization systems that captains and fleet operators can trust.

Core components

• AI-powered forecast/data engine: Utilizing advanced models such as Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs) and Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs), our solution processes vast amounts of marine data to deliver actionable insights.
• Real-time data assimilation: Incorporates near-real-time Earth Observation (EO) data from sources such as Copernicus Marine Service, along with reanalysis and buoy data for training, to ensure forecasts/data are continuously refined and aligned with ground truth conditions.
• Seamless API integration: Our efficient and reliable API allows for easy data delivery and integration with existing weather-based routing platforms, enabling maritime stakeholders to optimize voyages based on highly reliable marine weather forecasts without changing current operational practices.

Key features and functionalities

• Ultra-precise sea state forecasts/data: Provide critical parameters for routing systems such as significant wave height/direction, current speed/direction and surface wind speed/direction with superior accuracy and spatial/temporal resolutions.
• Computational efficiency: While conventional numerical forecast models demand hours of supercomputer processing across hundreds of machines, our models deliver groundbreaking accuracy with minimal resources, reducing inference time to just minutes and supporting green programming.
• Severe marine weather event warning: Breakthrough accuracy advancements enable earlier warnings for extreme marine weather events.
• Operational decision support: Enhances the effectiveness of route optimization systems, leading to enhanced safety levels and significant reductions in fuel consumption, operating costs and carbon emissions.
• Regulatory compliance enablement: Helps shipping companies meet IMO and EU emissions reduction targets, avoid fines and achieve sustainability goals.

Building trust with captains: Proven accuracy improvements restore confidence in weather-based route optimization, facilitating wider adoption.