Nowadays, ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs) can have a beam of up to 60 meters, which contributes to their high stability and short roll periods. The loss of containers on ULCVs can have various causes, often due to inadequate container securing gear, container stability, weather conditions and ship navigation. Around 7000 containers, according to World Shipping Council, have been lost at sea in the last three years, although the number of unreported cases is even higher. To tackle this problem, research produced alternative approaches. However, from a navigational perspective, it is not possible to completely prevent container losses with these. The Container Tracking and Accident Detection (ConTAD) project presented in this article, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, therefore takes a reactive approach.

The aim of the project is to increase the safety of shipping, strengthen supply chains, improve the salvage of containers, and increase the sustainability of shipping in European waters and beyond by further developing container tracking technology to detect container losses at sea. The project will utilize industry standards in communication and navigation technology such as GNSS, AIS and ECDIS. This paper describes the basis for the advanced container tracking technology to be developed based on a real container loss incident.

To this end, the incident involving the container ship MSC Zoe, which lost 342 containers off the Dutch coast on the night of January 1 to 2, 2019, is analyzed. It then looks at ways in which container tracking technology can be further developed. The following section provides an overview of current container tracking technology and monitoring systems and highlights the current technological gaps. Finally, it discusses what technologies need to be further developed to reach the project’s goals.