Chatty Beetle fights ferry fatalities

Under a ten year agreement signed in 2006, the initiative is being piloted in Bangladesh, where communication of hazardous weather alerts is among four priorities identified for trial projects. In the first of these projects, a classroom based crew training course will be delivered this month for further development following preliminary testing.

The weather project is also due to start in the near future and follows an approach by Interferry, the global trade association, and the US meteorological community. Through a USAID funded grant from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research is to study weather warnings to ferries on the domestic trade in Bangladesh, where the lessons learned could help to improve marine and coastal alerts in other countries with similar needs.

A key component of the plan involves Bangladeshi ferry operators pilot testing the Chatty Beetle alert device. The portable, battery powered, global messenger has been developed by RANET (Radio/Internet), a collaboration of national meteorological services working to improve weather transmissions in rural and remote communities.

Often it is not feasible to run communications systems round the clock in such areas because many high frequency rigs and satellite systems depend on solar arrays, which may not store enough energy, or generators that are too expensive to run through the night.

The carry-case Chatty Beetle can receive warning messages anywhere in the world independent of terrestrial infrastructure or external power supply, its batteries operate for up to 36 hours in standby mode. With two way pager capability, incoming messages trigger visual and audible warning cues.

Trials of the system in Bangladesh would fall within an extended international pilot scheme being launched by RANET, lasting a minimum of nine months, for which it is distributing 60 prototype units to partner hosts in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean by the end of May.