In order to achieve this, the marine educational institutes of the three countries were equipped with the latest marine and crisis management simulators from Transas’ simulation division, which interfaced PISCES II, Navi-Trainer 4000, VTS and GMDSS simulators to work as one unit in Crisis Management Simulator Centre (CMSC) mode.

The project is unique due to the integration of simulators into a common network for the training and cooperation of Russian, Finnish and Estonian specialists during oil spill response. Four EU funded projects are a response to vastly increased oil and oil products transportation in the Gulf of Finland.

The four projects aim to unite the three CSMC as one network sharing resources whilst simultaneously training for contingency, response and clean up procedures in the same spill scenario in all three countries. Another of the project’s main objectives is to harmonise oil spill related training courses as well as share training scenarios, databases and expertise.

Accepting the award on behalf of Transas, Andrey Sitkov said, ‘Our future plans in simulation integration are on the one hand to advance functionality even further. On the other hand, we plan to work with customers to create training and research cases and courseware for complex training solutions.’