AIS Tracker

THIS IS A PROOF OF CONCEPT. IT IS NOT PRODUCTION READY.

THIS PROJECT USES A HIDDEN API, IT MAY BREAK AT ANY MOMENT.

This Python script makes use of the MarineTraffic API to retrieve positions of vessels and keep record of their position. This project uses GitHub Actions to automatically run the script on a schedule.

Setup

Github Action Cron Job (recommended)

Fork this repository and let the github action do the hard work for you. You need to give the Job or Workflow at least the contents: write permission, otherwise the job will fail.

Locally

Install the requests library by running pip install requests and then

python main.py

Customization

Set of vessels

You can customize the set of vessels you want to track by modifying the ships.json file. The required field is the shipid from MarineTraffic. The other fields are only here for readability.

Set of variables

You can customize the script by altering the vars_to_keep in main.py to include or exclude different variables from the API response. By default only longitude and latitude are saved. As it is a hidden API, no documentation is given. Here is a full response sample that you can use:

{'isVesselInRange': True,
 'hasNewerSatellitePosition': False,
 'isEligibleToRequestInmarsat': False,
 'areaName': 'Caribbean Sea',
 'areaCode': 'CARIBS',
 'course': 6,
 'lastPos': 1674382124,
 'timezoneOffset': -240,
 'lat': 18.4596,
 'lon': -66.10029,
 'shipStatus': 'Moored',
 'speed': 0.1,
 'stationId': '18402',
 'stationName': 'San Juan Bay Pilots',
 'sourceType': 'terrestrial',
 'stationOperator': 'San Juan Bay Pilots',
 'windAngle': 106,
 'windSpeed': 11,
 'windTemperature': 23,
 'departurePort': {'id': '11213',
  'name': 'ROAD TOWN',
  'code': 'RAD',
  'timestamp': 1674252240,
  'offset': -240,
  'timestampLabel': 'ATD',
  'countryCode': 'VG'},
 'arrivalPort': {'id': '1023',
  'name': 'SAN JUAN',
  'code': 'SJU',
  'timestamp': 1674376920,
  'offset': -240,
  'timestampLabel': 'ATA',
  'countryCode': 'PR'},
 'draughtReported': 8.9,
 'currentPortId': 1023,
 'currentPortName': 'SAN JUAN'}

Schedule

You can edit the schedule field in the on section of the workflow file. The schedule is set to run the script twice a day by default. Example:

  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *" # This will run every day at midnight