VIRTUAL REGIONAL MARITIME TRAFFIC CENTRE (V-

RMTC) AND TRANS-REGIONAL MARITIME NETWORK

(T-RMN)

The V-RMTC is a virtual network connecting and exchanging information
among the Naval Operational Centers of the 24 Navies adhering the Initiative.
Through this network, based on internet, unclassified information related to
merchant shipping of naval units greater than 300 tons are shared.
The network is based on an Italian Navy homemade software called Service-
oriented infrastructure for MARitime Traffic tracking (SMART).
The hub of the V-RMTC is located in Rome at the Italian Fleet Headquarter
(CINCNAV). CINCNAV is the central hub, and has the role of gathering,
merging all information, fusing it in a unique single picture. This picture is then,
in real time broadcasted to all V-RMTC participating Navies.

The V-RMTC initiative was launched by the Italian Navy at the 5
th
Venice
Regional Sea Power Symposium edition (2004) where all participants
unanimously agreed on the need to strengthen the maritime security in the
Mediterranean Region through dedicated initiatives.
Therefore , the Italian Navy started a technical analysis to find out a way to
connect all Navies through a dedicated network to exchange unclassified
information and data. At the same time, a legal framework was drafted (called
Operational Arrangement - OA).
At the 6
th
Venice Regional Sea Power Symposium edition (2006), 17 Navies
(Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Israel, Jordan, Malta,
Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovenia, Turkey, UK, USA), belonging
to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, adhered to the Initiative and signed the
OA, thus giving birth to the V-RMTC Initiative and to the so called Wider
Mediterranean Community (WMC).
From November 2007 and January 2008, Germany and Bulgaria joined the
network, followed, in October 2008, by Belgium, Georgia, Netherlands, Senegal
and more recently Ukraine (October 2010). The WMC currently counts 24
Navies members.

Since the V-RMTC achieved this resounding success even outside the
Mediterranean region, in 2006, it was decided to study the possibility to further
expand the Community, thus considering a Trans-Regional application, too.
Thanks to the flexibility of the model and without additional expenses, Italy
started bilaterally some tests to explore the possibility to interface the V-RMTC
system with the Brazilian and Singapore national Navy Operational Centers.
Brazil and Singapore have their own system called SISTRAM and OASYS. The
success of these tests drove the Italian Navy to the decision to propose the
WMC Community to federate the V-RMTC system with the Brazilian and
Singaporean systems. The whole WMC Community agreed unanimously with
Navy Italian
the proposed way ahead and, in October 2010, a Trans-regional Maritime
Network (T-RMN) was created.

At the beginning of 2012, the Brazilian Navy sponsored the admittance of the
Argentine and South African Navies in the T-RMN. Upon completion of the
technical trials, and after having achieved the consensus of WMC and T-RMN
Communities members, the South African Navy signed the Note of Accession
in 2012 while Argentine Navy officially signed last December 2013.
It worth mentioning that recently also the Peruvian Navy has officially request to
join the T-RMN Community. The accession process, to get the consensus of the
Community, was initiated and is still in progress.

Let me underline that, although, the WMC and T-RMN are two different
Communities (the former include the 24 WMC members, while the latter include
24 WMC plus Brazil, Argentina, Singapore and South Africa) data and
information exchanged are exactly the same (same server, same picture) as all
28 total Navies have signed both the V-RMTC and the T-RMN Operational
Arrangements.

What are the benefit for those Navies joining the V-RMTC&T-RMN system? The
system and software are cheap, zero costs for Members, as the software and
applications are updated/upgraded by the Italian Navy personnel, easy to
manage and "guaranteed", which means that the information treated have a
"proved & reliable" origins. However, the top benefit is that the Operational
Arrangement guarantee that the information shared must remain within the
Community and cannot be released outside this circle, furthermore the
members have no obligation on what, and when to share their own information
and data, but all can get back the entire maritime picture.

What is the process to be a part of the T-RMN Community? Premising that the
WMC &T-RMN are agreement among Navies, the process that a newcomer has
to follow to join the Community is illustrated in the Article 8 of the Operational
Arrangement. A formal request has to be submitted to one of the three
Technical Leading Navies (at its choice - Italy, Brazil, Singapore), who will
sponsor the admittance toward the Community. The newcomer will be entitle to
sign the Note of Accession of the Operational Arrangement upon the
unanimous consensus of the T-RMN members is achieved. The Italian Navy
and/or the Technical Leading Navy will work together to find out the best
solution to establish the data connection with the newcomer Naval Operational
Centre.

To conclude, I would like to spend few words also on another initiative which
represents a further application of the V-RMTC: the so called 5+5 Defence
Initiative. This Community, composed by the north Mediterranean countries
(Italy, Malta, Spain, Portugal, France) and the south Mediterranean countries
(Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), was born in 2004 to strengthen
the cooperation among these countries in common Defence fields. To this aim,
in 2007, the Italian Navy has proposed to the 5+5 Navies members to create a
virtual network, similar to the above mentioned V-RMTC system, thus creating
the 5+5 V-RMTC network. Although both systems use the same software, and
there are similarity on the denomination, the WMC&T-RMN and the 5+5 V-
RMTC Communities are completely separated and information/data reside on
different servers and cannot be shared.

Whenever a Navy is interested to the system but has not made the decision to
join the Community, the Italian Navy remains available to start and establish a
bilateral exchange of information for a better understanding and explore
possible technical solutions.