A completely new service will be available for vessel traffic on the Finnish coast this week when the Fintraffic Master's Guide opens to users on Friday 10 November. The new Master's Guide service provides ships and other stakeholders arriving in Finnish ports with all important instructions for vessel traffic, while improving the route planning and situational awareness of ships arriving in Finland.
The Fintraffic Master's Guide service is available at mastersguide.fintraffic.fi. The service will be published in English at first, but the Finnish and Swedish versions will already be available in the coming months.
All important instructions for vessel traffic now in one service
The publication of the new online service is an important step for Master's Guide as a product serving seafarers. A leap from a PDF information package aimed at ships to a modern data platform will also bring Master's Guide to internationally interesting light.
"The understanding of the needs and wishes of stakeholders has been at the core of the development work, and the content of the service has been designed from the outset in a very user-oriented manner in cooperation with Finnish maritime stakeholders and the deck officers of vessel traffic to Finland. The end result is a modern and flexible data platform that supports the communication of maritime transport operators and safe and smooth traffic to VTS areas. In addition, the service improves the route planning and situational awareness of vessels arriving in Finland by providing up-to-date information tailored on the basis of the destination port and essential for the journey", says Esa Kallio, Development Manager of Fintraffic’s Vessel Traffic Services.
At the publication stage, the Master's Guide service contains slightly more than 10 Finnish ports, but the number of ports will be increased to cover all Finnish ports. For ports, the service is completely free of charge and allows ports to communicate on topical issues specific to ports.
According to its name, the Master's Guide service also contains all special instructions for vessel traffic, i.e. Master's Guides, which serve as a source of information for deck officers working on ships in particular, who seek information on the operating methods of the country and its VTS areas when arriving in Finnish ports. The Master's Guides provide information on matters such as the operation of the VTS system, the duties of the master of the vessel, and the contact information critical for the port calls.
In addition to the Master's Guides at port level, Master's Guides for VTS areas are also available as usual: Archipelago, Bothnia, West Coast, Hanko, Helsinki 1 & 2, Kotka and Saimaa. The service also includes the Master's Guides of GOFREP and Åland Sea Traffic.
The original Master's Guides in PDF format will operate on the Fintraffic website alongside the new online service for a sufficient transition period.
The digitalised Master’s Guides are part of the traffic management strategy of Fintraffic's Vessel Traffic Services. It is aimed at building new productised services for the needs of vessel traffic, safety first. The new Master’s Guide service is a calling card for Finnish shipping and smooth port calls. It will be built as part of the new Maritime Traffic Notification Service (NEMO). The long-term vision is to develop the service further so that vessels will receive targeted information related to their own journey based on, for example, the port call notification made in the new information management system.
