GLAs launch strategy ‘2025 and Beyond’

The document, launched by Trinity House executive chairman, Rear Admiral Sir Jeremy de Halpert, and UK Shipping Minister, Mike Penning MP, charts the GLAs’ strategy over the next 15 years to provide an appropriate mix of physical and electronic AtoN whilst delivering a service that is “robust, efficient and economic”.

The strategy considers an already complex coastal environment, with the Dover Straits one of the busiest pinch points in the world, strong tidal currents in the Pentland Firth and large tidal ranges in the Bristol Channel. There are 255 offshore oil and gas platforms as well as plans for up to 7,000 offshore wind turbines and other tidal or wave energy installations. These factors reduce the available sea area for shipping, against a long term trend towards larger ships relying primarily on GPS in the coastal voyage phase. Crew sizes are being reduced and, with a severe shortage of mariners, evidence links the rise in the number of accidents at sea with human and navigational error.

e-Naviagtion, the integration of all charting, communications and navigation information into a coherent bridge presentation , data-linked to the shore, is seen as the solution but, with GPS the primary navigational system and vulnerable to interference, there is a need for terrestrial back-up. The GLA’s choice for this is enhanced Loran (eLoran), and they continue to participate in a pan-European Loran network on a trial basis in the belief that it or an equivalent terrestrial back-up is a key building block of e-Navigation.

The transition period to e-Navigation carries a degree of temporary risk that will require mitigation by the continuing deployment of physical AtoN. The GLAs’ belief is that even with the full implementation of e-Naviagtion, spatial awareness in ever more crowded inshore areas and some aspects of coastal navigation will remain important. Leading lights, sector lights and buoyage will continue to be in the mix of AtoN provision. If eLoran or equivalent is not mandated as a back-up to GNSS, the GLAs will be slow to reduce the amount and nature of physical AtoN currently deployed.

The GLAs have used ‘trend analysis techniques’ to 2038 to support the creation of 2025 and Beyond, which broadly assumes a future where there is free movement of people and goods and where focussed technology and innovation allows economic growth within environmental limits. There are, however, other scenarios and the GLAs consider it important to develop ways of anticipating future risks and challenges.

Operationally, the GLAs will continue to be driven by user requirements and the need to respond to international and national developments linked to regulation, offshore developments and technology, including e-Navigation.

The full 2025 and Beyond document is available at:

http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/pdfs/2025_and_Beyond.pdf