Investigation of Passing Ships in Inaccessible Areas Using Satellite-based Automatic Identification System (S-AIS) Data

Shipping of North Korea is not yet publicly well documented. Taedong River, the most important sea route of North Korea, is selected as a model study area to show how effectively a remote place can be investigated through the application of satellite-based Automatic Identification System (S-AIS) for understanding shipping and tracks of vessels which passed the lock gate in the Taedong River and visited the nearby ports on its track. S-AIS data of the year 2014 were analyzed on the basis of various time periods, country of registry and category of ships. A total of 325 vessels were observed. The ships under the flags of North Korea, Cambodia and Sierra Leone were found to be dominant in frequencies which accounted for 43.08%, 16.00%, and 8.92%, respectively. Trajectories of the 325 ships in the Yellow Sea were also checked according to the flags. It is concluded that some ships under the flags of Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Mongolia, Panama and Kiribati are regarded as flags of convenience, and ships without flag and ship type codes also comprised a remarkable portion out of the total ships.