[SatNews] The Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico proved out some leading technologies in the battle to halt the flow of oil and to restore the waters.

PortVision®, a provider of business intelligence solutions for the maritime industry, has revealed that BP used the company’s PortVision vessel-tracking service and PV-OnBoard battery-operated satellite trackers to enhance and accelerate response and restoration operations related to the April 20, 2010, “Deepwater Horizon” incident.

The PortVision service leverages the world’s only comprehensive database of AIS real-time and historical tracking data to provide detailed visibility into commercial vessel activity, from port arrivals and departures, to ship movements on the open sea. To track smaller vessels that are not equipped with AIS transponders, BP and the Unified Command team have used the PortVision service with data provided by the company’s PV-OnBoard battery-operated satellite trackers, which are now being deployed on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Information from the combination of AIS and satellite data has simplified the team’s challenging task of monitoring and managing the many ships, fishing boats, skimmers and barges that have been operated by multiple organizations in adjacent and often overlapping response areas.

Additionally, PortVision has customized its offering for BP and the Unified Command team, adding screen overlays of divisional response areas throughout the affected Gulf regions, and color-coding vessel types within these areas using the PortVision VesselZones™ feature. The ability to create user-defined VesselZones simplifies vessel viewing, tracking and alerts while streamlining and enhancing incident response. The PortVision web-based vessel tracking, management and analysis service is designed to provide greater insight into vessel activities in most major U.S. ports and regions and over 100 international ports. It is the only database of its kind that contains five years of data regarding the movements of commercial ships in major ports and waterways that transmit IMO and USCG-mandated AIS collision-avoidance signals. “The PortVision service has significantly improved how we have managed vessel activity related to the Gulf response and restoration operation,” said Scott Neuhauser, Deputy Branch Director for Plaquemines Parish with BP. “PortVision has given us significantly greater visibility into what’s occurring in the field so that we could assess progress and more effectively allocate the more than 30,800 personnel, 5,050 vessels and dozens of aircraft that are engaged in the response effort.”