AIS system consists of a central station and dedicated software satisfying international requirements and regulations for Automatic Identification Systems, provided by the International Maritime Organization, International Electrotechnical Commission, or in the SOLAS Convention. AIS monitors movements of vessels in a selected area and archives the received data for their further analysis. 

The system is used for creating electronic charts with multiple navigational data: radar-acquired targets, vessel positions and vectors. Equipped with a prediction function, the system allows to assess a navigational situation and the related safety of ships manoeuvring in an area.

http://www.iala-aism.org/wiki/ialanet/index.php?title=IALA-NET_Web_Display

In the context of the Centre’s research on and development of vessel traffic analyses, the system finds the following applications:

• analysis of events by the presentation of parameters characterizing vessel movements from data recorded in the data base,
• recording of current vessel traffic, displaying a water area on navigational charts and archiving data on a kasetowy server of the AIS system;  the recorded data will allow to build a vessel traffic data base,
• estimation of potential consequences of an accident by analyzing the resultant chart in the ESRI system, GIS standard, on an ECDIS display.