Live Ship Tracking (AIS)
Real-time vessel positions across Southampton Water and the Solent
Southampton is one of the UK’s busiest ports — container ships, cruise liners, the Fawley oil terminal, Isle of Wight ferries and a constant flow of leisure traffic all move through Southampton Water and the Solent every day, most of it managed by Southampton VTS. The live map below shows real vessel positions right now, built from actual shipboard AIS transmissions rather than a schedule or a forecast.
What Is AIS?
The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a VHF radio transponder every commercial vessel above a certain size is legally required to carry (all passenger ships regardless of size, cargo ships over 300 tonnes on international voyages, and most fishing and leisure vessels fitted voluntarily). Each ship continuously broadcasts its identity, position, course, speed and destination. Coastal receiver stations — and satellites, for vessels further offshore — pick this up and feed it into tracking services like the one below, giving a live picture of what's actually out on the water rather than a timetable of what's supposed to be.
Live Map
Source: MarineTraffic — see Credits for full details. Ship icons are colour-coded by vessel type: green cargo vessels, red tankers, blue passenger vessels, orange high-speed craft, teal tugs & special craft, purple pleasure craft — use the vessel-filters icon on the map itself to see the full legend or filter by type.
Good To Know
Positions typically update every couple of minutes while a vessel is within range of a coastal receiver, though larger ships further out at sea (picked up via satellite AIS instead) can lag by longer. Small leisure craft without an AIS transponder — the majority of yachts and dinghies on the Solent on any given day — simply won’t appear at all; this is a picture of AIS-equipped traffic, not every vessel on the water. For a complete, moment-to-moment authoritative picture, the professionals doing the job are Southampton VTS themselves, working live radar and VHF alongside AIS — see our Port Information and Live Marine VHF pages.
See also: Live Marine VHF • Shipping Forecast • Local Tides