English Channel Traffic Control

Extract

With reference to Captain Emden's paper in the April 1975 issue of this Journal, in which he refers to the control and identification of shipping passing through the English Channel, and the numerous articles by Captain Wylie on the subject of computerized shipborne collision avoidance systems, why not adapt the ship-borne radar systems for land based control of Channel traffic ? A modified shore based system would, with present and predicted traffic movement, be ideally suited to this type of application. As to the problem of operator traffic identification and control, the present civil air traffic control procedures would seem to provide the ideal solution; if all shipping were required to carry dual channel multi-code transponders in addition to the current obligatory navaids.