MarineCadastre AccessAIS
MarineCadastre AccessAIS
MarineCadastre AccessAIS is NOAA/BOEM's interactive clip-and-ship tool for ordering historical AIS broadcast point data for a user-defined area and time window in U.S. waters. It is a separate product from MarineCadastre's annual AIS vessel-transit count rasters: AccessAIS delivers filtered broadcast points (not transit grids or live AIS), with new point years added quarterly and individual orders capped at 2 GB.
Coverage
Generally U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, major inland waterways, the Great Lakes and Guam from land-based U.S. Coast Guard Nationwide AIS receivers (plus U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inland coverage). FAQ states coverage is unavailable for remote Pacific territories, foreign waters, or waters more than about 40–50 miles from the coast; Alaska broadcast points are unavailable after 28 March 2021. Earliest year is 2009. Live feeds are not offered. Exact residual history depth in the interactive tool (rolling window of recent years) is Not stated beyond "most recent years" with quarterly adds.
Verdict
This is the U.S. historical AIS point-order path for agents that need raw broadcast positions in a custom coastal AOI — ship-identity and track reconstruction for port approaches, chokepoints and inland waterways — complementary to the already-listed annual transit-count rasters. MarineCadastre's disclaimer puts government-server information in the public domain unless annotated otherwise. Orders need an email address, stay under 2 GB, and are fulfilled asynchronously; for nationwide annual files use the bulk AIS download page instead of AccessAIS.
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Use in your agent
Inventory MarineCadastre AIS bulk point years (AccessAIS companion). Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 5, 2026.
Access
- No key for the public AIS documentation and bulk point inventory pages.
- AccessAIS interactive orders need an email address, stay under 2 GB, and are fulfilled asynchronously; this skill inventories the documented public AIS entry points rather than placing an order.
Request
curl -I 'https://www.coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/ais.html'Format
HTML tool overview for AccessAIS; companion FAQ/help PDFs describe broadcast-point orders vs transit products.
Load into pandas and Parquet
Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.
"""Check AccessAIS tool page reachability and record FAQ product boundary notes -> pandas -> Parquet."""
import pandas as pd
import requests
UA = {"User-Agent": "SignalLabCheck/1.0"}
rows = []
for url, note in [
("https://www.coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/ais.html", "AccessAIS Digital Coast tool overview"),
("https://marinecadastre.gov/accessais/", "AccessAIS application entry"),
("https://coast.noaa.gov/data/marinecadastre/ais/faq.pdf", "AIS FAQ (points vs transit)"),
]:
r = requests.get(url, headers=UA, timeout=60, allow_redirects=True)
rows.append({"url": url, "note": note, "status": r.status_code, "bytes": len(r.content), "final_url": r.url})
df = pd.DataFrame(rows)
df.to_parquet("marinecadastre_accessais_inventory.parquet", index=False)
print(df)
Run by us on 2026-11-05 (python 3 | pandas | pyarrow | requests). Result: Probed AccessAIS Digital Coast overview, app entry and FAQ PDF on 2026-11-05; overview and FAQ returned HTTP 200 (FAQ ~506 KB). Interactive order not placed.
Limits
- AccessAIS interactive orders are capped at 2 GB and one active order per user (FAQ/help).
- This skill does not place AccessAIS orders or download multi-GB point extracts.
Quirks
- AccessAIS delivers broadcast points only; transit-count and track products are separate MarineCadastre downloads.
- Live AIS is not offered; Alaska points stop after 28 March 2021 per AccessAIS help.
Terms and attribution
- MarineCadastre: information on government servers is in the public domain unless specifically annotated otherwise and may be used freely by the user.
Sources
- https://www.coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/ais.html: “This web-based tool enables users to interactively download U.S. vessel traffic data across user-defined geographies and time periods.”
- https://coast.noaa.gov/data/marinecadastre/ais/faq.pdf: “AccessAIS is a data provisioning system for broadcast point data. Track and transit count data are not distributed by this application.”
Information and education only. Not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Listings can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and are provided "as is". Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to each provider and can change, so check the provider's own terms before you rely on them. Terms & Disclaimer