Council visit Vessel Traffic System at Southampton

The SPS Council were guests of the Harbour Master ABP Southampton, Captain Steven Young, visiting the operational Vessel Traffic System (VTS) at the port of Southampton. Visits to this centre are rare. Captain Young started our visit with an illustrated talk on their overall operations at the port, one of the country’s busiest and most successful deep-water ports. They handle any type of cargo, the UK’s principle cruise port, UK’s leading vehicle handling port, half of UK’s container trade from the Far East and 24 million tonnes of oil and petroleum products each year.

Following the talk we went into the VTS operations room to see an array of radar sets giving coverage of Southampton Water, Central and Eastern Solent and the on watch team controlling vessel movement throughout the Solent.

It was a very impressive and enlightening visit.

Report by M. Rhodes, Esq., OBE