| # | Name | MMSI / IMO | Type | Speed / Heading | Destination | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| {{ row.rank }} | {{ row.name }} | {{ row.identity }} | {{ row.type }} |
{{ row.speed }}
{{ row.heading }}
|
{{ row.destination || '-' }}
{{ row.coord }}
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| No vessels match the current filters. | ||||||
| Loading latest positions... | ||||||
The Automatic Identification System, or AIS, is the vessel-reporting standard that broadcasts identity and navigation data such as position, speed, and course. When you need a quick picture of traffic in Finnish waters, a current AIS snapshot is often enough to answer practical questions like whether a ship is approaching a harbor, whether a named vessel is still underway, or whether two similarly named vessels are actually different craft.
This tracker turns that snapshot into a searchable working view. You can look up a vessel by MMSI, IMO number, callsign, or name, narrow the list by ship-type bands, optionally focus on a center point and radius, and then inspect a selected vessel in a table, on a map, or as JSON.
That makes it useful for dispatch work, port-side coordination, spot checks during voyage planning, and basic operational awareness when a full charting system would be excessive. A terminal operator might search a cargo vessel by IMO to avoid name collisions, while a harbor watcher might start with an empty query and a radius around a pilot station to see which moving vessels are currently nearby.
The results are deliberately snapshot-oriented. The page does not build a historical track, predict future movement, or replace bridge-grade situational tools. It highlights the latest reported state available from the source line shown in the interface, which means a ship can move between reports and a quiet or stale row does not necessarily mean the vessel has stopped transmitting forever.
The fastest path depends on how certain you already are about the vessel identity. If you have a 9-digit MMSI or 7-digit IMO number, use that because the lookup logic treats those as exact numeric identifiers. If you only have a name, the tool falls back to a name-contains match, which is convenient for rough discovery but can surface lookalikes and old naming variants.
The vessel-type filter is most useful when the area is busy and you care about only one traffic class. Cargo, tanker, passenger, high-speed craft, and other broad groups map to AIS ship-type code bands. The page also exposes a combined Service / SAR option that covers 50x service craft and the wider 30x workboat range used by the tool, so it is broader than a pure rescue-only filter.
The advanced center-point controls shift the page from identity lookup into local traffic scanning. Once you enter latitude and longitude, the tool calculates distance from that point for every returned vessel, sorts by proximity, and can apply a radius cut-off in kilometers. That is helpful when you want to answer a location-based question such as which moving ships are within 25 km of a terminal, anchorage, or traffic separation entry.
The hide-stationary switch is a practical noise filter rather than a judgment about navigational state. It removes vessels reporting zero knots over ground, which can clear away moored or anchored traffic when you only care about active approaches. If you are investigating berth occupancy, waiting areas, or anchored support craft, leave that switch off so you do not hide the vessels you actually need to see.
A blank search is still useful. Because the page can query without a required term, the default state returns a capped list of vessels from the latest source snapshot. That gives you a quick broad sample, but it is not the same as an exhaustive regional traffic picture because the result cap and any current filters still shape what appears.
AIS reports combine static identity fields with dynamic navigation fields. In this tool, the most important identity fields are MMSI, IMO, callsign, and vessel name. The dynamic fields that most readers care about are latitude, longitude, speed over ground, heading, course over ground, destination text, and navigation status.
The tool queries an ArcGIS feature-layer endpoint and presents the source in the interface as Fintraffic Digitraffic AIS (15 min snapshots). After each response, the page decorates raw values into readable labels. Speed is shown in knots and kilometers per hour, headings are given with a cardinal direction, ship-type codes are grouped into human-readable classes, and optional distance from a center point is calculated with a great-circle formula.
That distance logic matters because it changes both filtering and sort order. Without a center point, the visible list is sorted by vessel name. With a center point, vessels with usable coordinates are ranked by proximity, and an entered radius excludes anything beyond the requested distance.
The map tab is intentionally simple. It centers on the currently selected vessel, shows a single marker, and offers direct handoff links to OpenStreetMap and Google Maps. The JSON tab exports the decorated result set rather than only the raw upstream fields, which is useful when you need the page's readable labels and computed distance values in downstream notes or scripts.
| Field | What it tells you | Typical format |
|---|---|---|
| MMSI | Maritime Mobile Service Identity used as a radio-linked vessel identifier | 9 digits |
| IMO | International Maritime Organization ship identification number for long-lived vessel identity | 7 digits |
| Callsign | Radio callsign transmitted with the report when available | text |
| Speed over ground | Reported movement over the Earth's surface | kn, km/h |
| Heading and course | Reported pointing direction and movement direction | degrees |
| Destination | Destination text entered on the vessel side, if present | text |
| Coordinates | Reported vessel position used for map links and radius filtering | decimal degrees |
| Filter | Package rule | Interpretation note |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo | 70 to 79 | General cargo code band |
| Tanker | 80 to 89 | Liquid cargo tanker code band |
| Passenger | 60 to 69 | Passenger vessel code band |
| High speed craft | 40 to 49 | Fast craft code band |
| Service / SAR | 50 to 59, plus 30 to 39 | Broader than rescue alone because the tool includes 30x workboat-style codes |
| Fishing | 30 | May depend on what the upstream source publishes |
| Sailing / pleasure | 36 or 37 | Narrow recreational subset |
| Other | 0 or 90 and above | Undefined or out-of-group values |
Because the source is a snapshot feed, every row should be read as the latest available report rather than a continuous route. The page can help you decide whether a vessel is present, moving, and roughly where it was reported, but it cannot by itself explain why a report is delayed or whether a destination string is current.
A clean identity match is usually the most important part of the result. If the name looks right but the MMSI, IMO, or callsign does not, assume you may have matched the wrong vessel or a different ship with a similar name. That is especially important in commercial fleets where names can be reused or closely resemble one another.
Speed and heading help you distinguish an arrival from a stationary presence. A vessel showing zero knots may still matter operationally if you are monitoring berth occupancy, anchorage usage, or waiting traffic. A vessel with nonzero speed but an old destination string should be interpreted cautiously because destination text is operator-entered and can lag behind actual routing decisions.
Distance from center is best treated as a quick proximity aid, not as a legal or navigational measurement. It is computed from reported coordinates, so it is useful for rough inclusion decisions such as whether a vessel belongs inside a planning radius, but it is not a replacement for chart-based distance work when precision carries operational risk.
If a type filter returns unexpectedly few vessels, widen the search before assuming the water is empty. Upstream publication rules, stale reports, naming differences, and the result cap can all reduce the visible list.
Harbor arrival check. Enter a vessel's IMO number, keep the type wide, and confirm whether the returned row shows active speed toward the expected destination. If the destination text is blank, the position and movement fields still give you a quick presence check.
Nearby traffic scan. Leave the search term empty, set a center point at a port entrance, add a 20 km radius, and turn on hide-stationary. The tool will rank visible vessels by proximity and suppress zero-speed rows so you can focus on active approaches.
Name disambiguation. Search a vessel name first, compare all returned identity rows, then switch to a specific MMSI or callsign once you know which vessel you actually need. This is the safest way to avoid acting on the wrong ship when several names are similar.
No. It shows the latest available vessel reports from the queried snapshot and highlights one selected vessel on the map.
The page can still run and return a capped slice of the current snapshot, which is useful for broad traffic sampling.
AIS rows are only as current as the last published report. Position, speed, and destination may lag real movement, and destination text is manually entered on the vessel side.
Yes. The lookup queries a remote vessel-data endpoint, and the map links hand coordinates to OpenStreetMap or Google Maps only when you open those links.
The tool exposes ship type 30 as a fishing filter, but upstream AIS publication rules can limit what is actually available in the source feed.