A Feasibility Study of Applying SMCP to Vessel Traffic Service

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to evaluate the feasibility of using the Standard Marine Communication Phrases offered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO SMCP) in the context of Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) in Japan. To this end, the grammatical rules and vocabulary items used in the SMCP were analyzed to see if these rules, when applied to the SMCP vocabulary, can generate phrases necessary to provide Vessel Traffic Services in Japan referring to the 234 VTS English phrases offered by the Japan Coast Guard and TST Cooperation (Toyo Shingo Tsushinsha). The results indicated that most of these English sentences can be generated by applying a limited set of grammatical rules and function words contained in the SMCP, but that it was necessary to introduce additional vocabulary items.