The shipping density map highlights the intensity of all IMO registered ships operating in the Baltic Sea. It is based on the HELCOM AIS (Automatic Identification System) data. The HELCOM AIS dataset contains all the AIS signals received by the Baltic Sea States since 2005. The data was pre-processed by the HELCOM Secretariat (under the Baltic SCOPE project) in order to have a dataset that could be used to generate products such as density maps and traffic statistics.

Information on the number of ships equipped with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) crossing specific passage lines in the Baltic Sea during one year period. Years included in the attribute table are 2006 to 2020 (included). For visualisation in the map service, total amount of passage line crossings during 2020 is used. Description of the attribute table field headings: Location= name of the AIS crossing line Cargo_XXXX = Year XXXX cargo ship crossings Passg_XXXX = Year XXXX passenger ship crossings Tankr_XXXX = Year XXXX tanker ship crossings Other_XXXX = Year XXXX other ship crossings Data is available for the following passage lines (rows in attribute table): Bothnian Sea, Drogden, East of Gotland, Gulf of Finland, Irbe Strait, Kadet Fairway, Langeland East, North of Bornholm, Skaw, South of Bornholm, The Great Belt East Bridge, West of Gotland, Åland East and Åland West. For more information about shipping traffic in the Baltic Sea, see http://www.helcom.fi/Lists/Publications/BSEP152.pdf

The shipping density map highlights the intensity of all IMO registered ships operating in the Baltic Sea for the period 2016-2020. It was extracted from the HELCOM AIS (Automatic Identification System) dataset (https://metadata.helcom.fi/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/2558244b-0cea-46e9-8053-af6ef5d01853).

This dataset represents the density of all IMO registered ships operating in the Baltic Sea. Shipping density is defined as the number of ships crossing a 1 x 1km grid cell. Density maps are annual and created for the time period 2006-2022 per all ship types and by IMO ship category. HELCOM Map and Data service contains maps of 2019-2022 shipping density per ship type and total annual shipping density from 2006-2022. Downloadable resource zip file contains all maps from 2006-2020 including both ship type specific densities and total densities. Raw AIS data used for creating the density maps is based on HELCOM AIS (Automatic Identification System) data. The HELCOM AIS network hosts all the AIS signals received by the Baltic Sea States since 2005. The AIS Explorer allows to compare density maps of different ship types per month: https://maps.helcom.fi/website/AISexplorer/ The data was processed to produce density maps and traffic statistics. All scripts are available in GitHub: https://github.com/helcomsecretariat. The production of these maps have been carried out by HELCOM Secretariat for repeated times and supported by several project. During 2016-2017, the work was supported through the HELCOM project on the assessment of maritime activities in the Baltic Sea. The underlying AIS data processing work has been co-financed by EU projects Baltic Scope (2015-2017 EASME/EMFF/2014/1.2.1.5) and Baltic Lines (2016-2019, Interreg Baltic Sea Region). In addition, the Ministry of the Environment of Finland supported the work with a special contribution in view of the use of the results in the HOLAS II process.