Voyager Worldwide today announced a major upgrade to its Voyager PLANNING STATION navigation software. The simplest and easiest to use version yet released, it features enhanced automation of route and passage planning, information sharing between ship and shore and new interactive guided workflow processes to reduce operational risk and streamline navigation processes.

For shipping companies looking for an easier, more reliable way to ensure availability of critical ENC and other navigation updates onboard, Voyager PLANNING STATION now automatically delivers digital and paper Notices to Mariners on board as soon as they available. Updates are transmitted via a secure link direct from Voyager Worldwide straight to the Voyager PC onboard to ensure vessels always have the latest information and prevent compliance issues.

To complement the new fully automated update process, the size of the quarterly AVCS Admiralty Information Overlay update has been reduced by more than 85% from 25MB to an average of 3MB to make ECDIS updating easier, faster and more cost-effective. The result is very simple fully automated electronic delivery of all updates and New Editions and smaller, more cost-effective data downloads that, together, remove any residual need to send physical CDs or DVDs to ships.

Commenting on the announcement, Voyager Worldwide CEO, Kent Lee said:

“With its new levels of automation and enhanced user experience, this new version of Voyager PLANNING STATION provides comprehensive visibility of vessels against their planned routes and seamless distribution, updating and management of the data needed for e-Navigation. The result is better operational oversight that helps ship managers to safely and more efficiently manage their vessels and provides a faster, easier way for the bridge team to meet PSC and vetting requirements.”

In addition, a new built-in port to port routeing function enables users to select their departure and arrival port and generate a route. Routes automatically appear on either ENCs or Voyager’s integrated GIS map making it easy to refine waypoints to meet specific voyage requirements before clicking to identify and order the ENCs and other products needed for safe and compliant passage and creating a passage plan using Voyager PLANNING STATION’s comprehensive passage planning tool.

For shore-based users who want to more clearly understand vessel status compared to the planned voyage, the enhanced Route sharing module now automatically uploads saved routes to Voyager FLEET INSIGHT, Voyager Worldwide’s web platform to allow ship management to monitor vessels on a 24/7 basis. Using Voyager FLEET INSIGHT, vessels can be monitored on a PC in the office as well as on the go via a tablet and smartphone.

To provide better visibility of vessels’ compliance status and help reduce ECDIS and ENC related PSC observations and deficiencies, Voyager PLANNING STATION also now shows the details of when the ECDIS was last updated and shows when updates have not been applied. Voyager FLEET INSIGHT also now enables vessels’ ENC, paper chart and publication orders to be viewed as an overlay on planned routes to enable more efficient order checking and approval and help reduce unnecessary purchasing.