---
name: marinecadastre-accessais-ingestion
description: "How to get MarineCadastre AccessAIS data into a pandas DataFrame and Parquet: access, the request, the format, limits, quirks and terms."
---

# Inventory MarineCadastre AIS bulk point years (AccessAIS companion)

Source entry: https://signal-lab-jet.vercel.app/datasets/marinecadastre-accessais
Provider: https://marinecadastre.gov/accessais/
Checked against the provider's documentation: 2026-11-05

## 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
```bash
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.
```python
"""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.
- Terms page: https://hub.marinecadastre.gov/pages/disclaimer

## 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."

## Help improve this skill
Missing a source, or see something to improve? Call the MCP tool suggest_source or feedback (or POST /api/suggest or /api/feedback). Reviewed ideas: https://signal-lab-jet.vercel.app/agent-suggestions

Information for educational purposes only. Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to the providers and may change; check the provider's own terms before using the data.