What can you build with
the Port Events API?

The latest in Spire Maritime's range of APIs and Maritime tracking solutions allows you to get granular port events for individual vessels or areas.

But what exactly can be tracked by the Port Events API and what are its use cases?

Let's look at an individual vessel's port events - here is Boaty McBoatface, a containership moored at the ECT Delta terminal, on the port of Rotterdam. We will be tracking the events for a portion of her historical voyage.

As Boaty McBoatface leaves the Dutch port's terminal, Spire Maritime's Port Events API registers a new entry, including the timestamp of the event, how much time the vessel was in port, vessel draught at port departure time, static information like MMSI, IMO, vessel name and more.

The vessel then crosses the Mediterranean and arrives at a major maritime chokepoint - the Suez Canal. Besides granular port locations, Port Events API also tracks Canal‑type events for major canals across the world.

Boaty McBoatface is now tracked leaving the Suez. Note that Port Events tracks the time spent inside the Canal, from entry to departure. In this case, the vessel has spent a total of 9 hours and 38 minutes from arrival to departure from the Suez Canal.

Another long leg of the voyage - this time, across the Black Sea and the Indian Sea, arriving in the area of the Port of Singapore - total voyage leg time was 13 days and 19 hours. Calculating voyage between event locations is easy using the API response's included timestamps.

Boaty McBoatface is now anchored inside Singapore's Anchorage area #10. The Port Events API uses a comprehensive and very granular database of polygon locations for event calculation. Anchorage events are especially interesting to understand waiting times outside ports and port congestion.

We're actually showing 2 different actions here - departing from the anchorage area (after a time of 2 hours and 12 minutes in anchorage), and arriving at a terminal of the port of Singapore, in this case the Pasir Panjang Containership Terminal 4.

Granular port terminal events are essential in order to track the supply chain and global trade, as they allow a precise understanding of a vessel's cargo.

After 1 day, 22 hours and 13 minutes inside the port terminal, Boaty McBoatface is on the move, and her departure from the port terminal is tracked by Port Events API. This is a crucial moment in vessel tracking - as port terminal departure, coupled with a change in draught, might indicate a possible loading or unloading event.

In this case, the vessel's draught has changed from 15 meters to 12.6 meters, which can be an indication that the vessel has unloaded cargo at the port of Singapore.

Boaty McBoatface now crosses the South China Sea, heading to her reported destination for this leg of the trip - the Chinese port of Shanghai. As for the previous stop in Singapore, the vessel first heads to one of the anchorage areas - Shanghai's anchorage #4 in this case.

Anchorage events are detected using a plethora of variables. Just crossing an anchorage area is not enough to reliably detect an anchorage event. Spire Maritime uses a vessel's speed, heading, reported destination and other factors to understand if indeed a vessel is anchoring at one of these areas - this is essential to understand port congestion.

After 1 day, 3 hours and 47 minutes of waiting in anchorage to enter a Shanghai port terminal, Boaty McBoatface arrives at the Yangshan Containership terminal of the port of Shanghai - triggering, once again, a port terminal event in the API.

Port events are essential in any maritime tracking application or use case. Start using Spire Maritime's Port Events API today with our easy to use documentation and 24/7 product support.