LRIT – FOR EXISTING EQUIPMENT BY 2006

Discussion began at the 22nd Assembly in November 2001, just after 9/11. As he highlighted, it was noted at the Assembly in Resolution A.924 (22) that the IMO should undertake, on a high priority basis, a review of security measures and take prompt action.

At MSC (Maritime Safety Committee) 76 in December 2002, a draft resolution was prepared, and further discussion at the Diplomatic Conference in December 2002 resulted in two resolutions of direct relevance to long-range tracking. Resolution 3 invited the IMO to carry out, as a matter of urgency, an impact assessment of proposals to implement long-range identification and tracking of ships and develop and adopt appropriate performance standards and guidelines.

Resolution 10 urged governments to take action at a national level and invited governments to encourage their ships to prepare to respond to Inmarsat C polling or to other available systems. It also requested governments to consider all aspects of the introduction of LRIT, including misuse and confidentiality, and urged countries to ask ships to respond to INMARSAT-C polling.

Fisher says IMO’s COMSAR (Radio Communications Search and Rescue) working group continues to work on functional requirements for LRIT, and he anticipated that MSC 79 would agree to adopt global long-range tracking in December of this year, and that by February 2005, COMSAR 9 should have completed developing requirements, enabling MSC 80 to endorse the output of COMSAR 9 when it meets in June 2005. Long-range tracking could be introduced for existing equipment from December 2006, and for new equipment from December 2007, he concludes.