The LSE Directory / Alternative data
MarineTraffic is a maritime intelligence platform that tracks ships in real time and archives their historical movements using Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals. Its core product line covers live vessel positions, port call and berth data, and a searchable vessel database with construction details, dimensions, tonnage, ownership and IMO numbers for more than 550,000 active and decommissioned ships. Data reaches users through a public map and mobile apps, a paid tier with satellite-based tracking beyond coastal AIS range, and a set of APIs, AIS Data, Real-Time Events, Past Events, Predictive Events, Container Tracking and Predictive Schedules, built for programmatic integration into shipping, trading and logistics systems. The company built its coverage through a crowdsourced hardware model in which volunteers worldwide host small AIS receivers that feed positions into the network, supplemented by MarineTraffic's own stations and by satellite AIS for open-ocean tracking beyond terrestrial receiver range. Its own support documentation describes a network of more than 2,000 receiving stations across over 165 countries. This crowdsourced-plus-satellite approach, combined with a free public tracking layer used by shipping enthusiasts and port operators alongside a commercial data layer sold to trading desks, insurers, banks and supply-chain software vendors, differentiates it from vendors relying solely on owned infrastructure or a single satellite constellation. MarineTraffic began in 2007 as a side project of Dimitris Lekkas, then an assistant professor of information and communication systems engineering at the University of the Aegean in Ermoupoli, Greece, who started experimenting with AIS receivers in 2006 and put a trial site live in December 2007, initially covering only the Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean. It grew into an independent, Athens-based commercial company before being acquired, together with the Rostock-based and also 2007-founded rival FleetMon, by the commodities data and analytics firm Kpler; the deal was announced 15 February 2023 and the MarineTraffic transaction closed 7 March 2023. Kpler stated that, following both deals, the combined group employed more than 500 people and served over a million active users across the maritime and commodity industries; MarineTraffic continues to operate under its own brand as a Kpler subsidiary. Since the acquisition, Kpler has folded MarineTraffic's ship-tracking data into its wider commodity-flow and trade-intelligence stack, marketing it to enterprise customers in energy, finance and logistics with features such as sanctions and compliance screening, fleet passage-plan tools, and an AI-driven Predictive Schedules product that forecasts container vessel port calls ahead of official carrier schedule publication.
