In most Member States, these services are currently physically and administratively separate.

At the heart of the MarNIS concept is the creation of a national single window for electronically storing and distributing details of transiting vessels on the basis of once only reporting and state of the art tracking technology. These are then available for vessel traffic management and port entry, as well as pollution control and search and rescue. Customs, immigration and security authorities could also have access to the information.

See www.marnis.org for further information and read the full story in the August issue of Maritime Journal.