About The Organization

VTS (Vessel Traffic Services)

Chair: Monica Sundklev, Sweden

Vice Chair: Trond Ski, Norway

The VTS Committee produces a range of recommendations, guidelines and model courses related to the IALA Standards.

COMMITTEE WORK AND STRUCTURE

The work of the VTS Committee is structured into three working groups (WG) to deliver the work plan.

VTS Committee meetings are normally held at IALA HQ in Paris and physical attendance is recommended, but online participation is also possible. The committee meets normally twice per year.

The duration of a committee meeting is normally five days (Monday to Friday). Opening and closing plenary may be held at other times.

Committee meetings will be conducted in IALA’s working language – English including all input and output documents.

IALA Secretariat will inform all members of the dates of each committee meeting by email. Participants are requested to register at IALA web site.

Input documents for a committee meeting should be sent to the Secretariat no later than one month before the meeting and will be published on the member section of the IALA web site, no later than two weeks before the meeting. Documents should conform to the standard IALA template for input documents.

Documents for consideration at a meeting will be numbered by the Secretariat in a way that indicates the meeting number, the agenda item to which they refer and a numbering sequence.

Working papers (WP) are documents to be carried over to a subsequent meeting.

Output documents are documents completed and agreed by the Committee. They include draft standards recommendations, guidelines and other documents for submission to Council for approval before they can be published or forwarded to external organisations.

IALA STANDARDS RELATED TO VTS

The VTS Committee work is mainly organized according to five IALA Standards, as follows:

STANDARD 1040 VESSEL TRAFFIC SERVICES

Scope:

  • VTS implementation
  • VTS operations
  • VTS communications
  • VTS auditing and assessing
  • VTS data and information management
  • VTS technologies
  • VTS additional services

Standard 1050 Training and Certification

Scope:

  • Training and assessment
  • Accreditation, competency, certification and revalidation

Standard 1060 Digital Communication Technologies

Scope:

  • Harmonised maritime connectivity

Standard 1070 Information Services

Scope:

  • Data models and data encoding

STANDARD 1010 MARINE AIDS TO NAVIGATION PLANNING AND SERVICE REQUIREMENTS

Scope:

  • Obligations and regulatory compliance
  • Risk Management
  • Quality Management

For a detailed description of the present tasks of the VTS Committee, see Work Programme for committees.