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Following information is available :

• > Main objectives
• > Participation
• > Funding
• > Data
• > Right of use

Main objectives

The role of the industry in promoting quality and safety in marine transport is at the heart of the Quality Shipping Campaign, launched by the European Commission and the UK Government in November 1997. The Campaign's aim was to bring together all players involved in the various fields of marine business in an effort to improve marine safety. It was based upon dialogue between all the marine industry and public authorities and its tools are, primarily, voluntary measures. As the Quality Shipping Campaign demonstrated, one of the greatest impediments to a genuine quality culture in shipping is the lack of transparency in the information relating to the quality of ships and their operators.

While much relevant information is collected and available, it is scattered and often difficult to access. One of the main conclusions of the Quality Shipping Conference in Lisbon in June 1998, was an unanimous call from the participants representing the whole range of industry professionals (including ship-owners, cargo owners, insurers, brokers, classification societies, agents, ports and terminals), to make such information more accessible.

In response to this call, the European Commission and the French Maritime Administration decided to co-operate in developing an information system collating existing safety-related information on ships from both public and private sources and making it available on the Internet.

The main principles in setting up the Equasis information system are as follows:

Equasis should be a tool aimed at reducing substandard shipping, and it should be limited to safety-related information on ships.

Equasis has no commercial purpose; it addresses a public concern and should act accordingly.

Equasis should be an international database covering the whole world fleet.

Active co-operation with all players involved in the maritime industry is needed.

Equasis will be a tool used for better selection of ships, but it will be used on a voluntary basis and there will be no legal pressure for industry to use it.

The setting-up and effective operation of Equasis will help promote the exchange of unbiased information and transparency in maritime transport and thus allow persons involved in maritime transport to be better informed about the performance of ships and maritime organisations with which they are dealing.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by a small number of quality-minded maritime administrations as a first step towards the progressive incorporation of other administrations with a similar philosophy.

In order to ensure an appropriate geographical spread, the following maritime authorities are participating in the MoU: Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the European Maritime Safety Agency ( EMSA), representing the European Commission. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the US Coast Guard currently have observer status for Equasis.

The initiators of the Equasis project were the European Commission and the maritime administration of France as well as those of Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, the US Coast Guard and Japan.

The spread of the MoU will be widened in the future to allow like minded maritime organisations to participate, including, for example, other PSC regimes that have a proven track record.

Funding

Equasis is a non-profit making organisation. The task of Equasis is considered to fall within the field of competence of public authorities. For this reason Equasis is financed by public money and will continue to be supported by public authorities in the future.

France and the European Commission shared the cost of developing and running Equasis until 31 December 2001 when the maritime authorities of the United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore and Japan also agreed to support Equasis financially. The budget of Equasis is agreed and provided by the Equasis MoU members.

It is anticipated that the use of this website will remain free for the foreseeable future.

Data

Equasis aims at collecting and disseminating quality and safety-related information on the world's merchant fleet provided to it by holders of such information.

Equasis displays information from public authorities and industry organisations. The whole list of the present providers is available under the menu 'Providers'.

Only factual information is displayed in Equasis. Ship characteristics and ship management information are the two main parts of a ship record.

However, the ship record may not be complete since certain data may be not available or does not exist for that ship. If this is the case, the corresponding item or table is withdrawn from the page.

Special attention has been paid to the accuracy of the data. Data is regularly updated in order to help ensure that information remains as reliable as possible.

The frequency of updates varies from provider to provider. The date of the latest update is shown with the corresponding data.

If a user challenges the validity of the displayed information, an investigation is undertaken.

The database is subject to continuous improvement and more information sources will be added in time.