Nationwide Automatic Identification System Data for U.S. Waters, 2016

Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from the U.S. Coast Guard's national network, filtered to a one-minute frequency and subset to the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. The dataset, made available by NOAA and BOEM, contains real-time location and descriptive broadcasts from vessels for navigation safety and coastal management. The records are from 2016.

Use Cases

• Modeling vessel traffic patterns based on real-time location broadcasts.
• Assessing maritime safety and collision risk based on vessel proximity data.
• Supporting coastal resource management and planning based on vessel activity within the Exclusive Economic Zone.
• Analyzing shipping lanes and port congestion based on aggregated vessel movement data.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the authoritative U.S. Coast Guard national AIS receiver network.
• Records are filtered to a consistent one-minute frequency for temporal analysis.
• Spatial coverage is clearly defined as the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is from 2016; freshness should be verified for current applications.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Transmitted and monitored vessel broadcasts collected by the U.S. Coast Guard and industry, jointly processed by NOAA and BOEM.

Time Range

2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 19:48:43.288900; freshness should be verified

Geography

U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone