Compendium

Maritime / Shipping / Port Operations DSLs Family Index

13 min read

Maritime / Shipping / Port Operations DSLs Family Index

type: language-family-index family: maritime-port languages_catalogued: 26 tags: [language-reference, family-index, maritime-port, ais, imo-fal, edifact-baplie, dcsa, s-100, ebl, vermas, portcdm]

Maritime / Shipping / Port Operations — Family Index

Family overview

Maritime data exchange is one of the oldest computerised B2B domains and one of the most stratified — a stack that has accumulated rather than replaced. At the radio layer, AIS (Automatic Identification System) broadcasts every commercial vessel’s identity, position, course, speed and voyage data continuously over VHF; the wire format is ITU-R M.1371 binary payloads carried inside NMEA 0183 !AIVDM / !AIVDO sentences (or IEC 61162-450 / NMEA 2000 on modern bridges). Twenty-seven AIS message types, defined since the original 2001 ITU-R M.1371 recommendation, cover everything from position reports (types 1–3) to base-station messages, safety-related broadcasts, application-specific messages, long-range and Class B reports. Aggregated by terrestrial receivers and satellites (exactEarth, Spire, ORBCOMM), AIS now constitutes the world’s largest open vessel-tracking dataset — hundreds of millions of position reports per day.

At the regulatory layer, the IMO FAL Convention (Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, 1965) defines the harmonised ship-port data set, and since 1 January 2024 every IMO Member State is required to operate a Maritime Single Window (MSW) for electronic exchange of arrival/stay/departure declarations — an amendment adopted at FAL 46 in 2022 that made what had been a 2019 “must exchange electronically” rule into “must do so through a single digital portal.” The data model itself is the IMO Compendium, a harmonised data dictionary co-maintained with WCO, UN/CEFACT and ISO. Despite the mandate, real-world rollout is uneven — surveys through 2025 found over 60% of port calls still required paper or hybrid submissions, and 40% of stakeholders were unaware of the mandate.

At the container-shipping layer, the workhorse remains a 1990s-era family of UN/EDIFACT messages curated by SMDG (Ship Message Design Group): BAPLIE (bayplan/stowage), COPRAR (container pre-notification, line-to-terminal load list), COARRI (loading/discharge report, terminal-to-line confirmation), CODECO (gate-in/gate-out movement), MOVINS (stowage movement instructions), VERMAS (verified gross mass, required since the 2016 SOLAS amendment), IFTMIN/IFTMBF (multi-modal transport instruction/booking) and TPFREP (terminal performance report). BAPLIE 3.1.1 on directory D.13B is still the dominant in-production version in 2026, despite D.13B dating to 2013 — EDIFACT’s persistence in container shipping is one of the most striking examples of incumbency in computing.

The modernisation track is the DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association), founded in 2019 by Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and ONE (now nine ocean carriers), publishing JSON/REST replacements for the EDIFACT family: Booking 2.0, Bill of Lading 3.0, Track & Trace 3.0 (alpha Feb 2026, beta target Mar/Apr per the DCSA Roadmap 2026), Documentation, and Operational Vessel Schedules 3.0. The carrier members signed a “100% eBL by 2030” commitment, with a 50% milestone by 2028. The FIT Alliance (BIMCO, DCSA, FIATA, ICC, SWIFT) co-published the eBL Declaration in 2023, and legal scaffolding caught up via the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, India’s Bills of Lading Act 2025 and MLETR-aligned regimes in Singapore, Bahrain, France and the UAE — though in 2026 the eBL remains in a “hybrid” period where digital documents must sometimes be reprinted to paper at non-MLETR ports. In parallel, the IHO is rolling out the S-100 hydrographic-data framework: Phase 1 product specifications entered into force in January 2026, S-101 ECDIS is optionally available from January 2026 and mandatory for new ships from 1 January 2029, with a roughly decade-long “dual fuel” S-57/S-101 transition.

In our deep library

None of the maritime DSLs have standalone deep-library notes — they all sit at the format level above general-purpose languages like SQL, XML, JSON and the EDIFACT meta-syntax.

Cross-reference:

  • geospatial — primary sibling; NMEA 0183/2000, IEC 61162 and GPS sentence-level coverage live there. AIS AIVDM/AIVDO is dual-classified.
  • financial-regulatory — sibling; UN/EDIFACT shows up in commerce/finance, and the SWIFT eBL pilot (FIT Alliance member) overlaps both families.
  • retail-supplychain — sibling; EDIFACT IFTMIN/IFTMBF/IFTMBC and X12 215/315/322 cover the inland/multi-modal slice of the same shipment.
  • industrial-automation — port automation overlap; terminal operating systems (Navis N4, TBA, Konecranes TOS) sit between OT/SCADA and EDIFACT shipping data.
  • api-description — DCSA standards publish OpenAPI 3.x specifications; modern eBL and Track & Trace are REST APIs.
  • notation-spec — formal grammar references (UN/EDIFACT syntax rules, ISO 9735); S-100 uses GML/UML feature catalogues.

Tier 3 family table — Vessel tracking & navigation

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
NMEA 0183 !AIVDM / !AIVDO (AIS sentence)2001 (ITU-R M.1371)NMEA + ITU-RASCII envelope sentence carrying base64-armoured AIS binaryUniversal — every AIS receiver speaks AIVDM; dual-listed in geospatialhttps://gpsd.gitlab.io/gpsd/AIVDM.html
AIS message types 1–27 (ITU-R M.1371)2001, revised through M.1371-5 (2014)ITU-R Working Party 5BBit-packed binary payloads (6-bit ASCII armour inside AIVDM)Active; types 1–24 fully documented, 25–27 long-range/Class B extensionshttps://www.navcen.uscg.gov/types-of-ais
IEC 61162 / NMEA 2000NMEA 2000: 1994; IEC 61162-1: 1995, -450 (Ethernet): 2011NMEA + IEC TC80CAN-bus binary (2000) and Ethernet multicast (61162-450) framings of NMEA-style sentencesActive; dual-listed in geospatialhttps://www.nmea.org/nmea-2000.html
MMSI / IMO Number / Call SignMMSI 1997 (ITU-R M.585); IMO Number 1987 (res. A.600(15)); Call Sign ITU since 1912ITU / IMO9-digit numeric (MMSI), 7-digit numeric (IMO), alphanumeric (Call Sign) vessel identifiersUniversal; assigned by national administrations under ITU ruleshttps://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/terrestrial/fmd/Pages/mmsi.aspx
NAVTEX broadcast format1986 (IMO/IHO/WMO operational)IMO + IHO + WMOFixed-format ASCII text broadcasts on 518 kHz / 490 kHz / 4209.5 kHz; subject/area/serial header (e.g. ZCZC AA01)Active; part of GMDSS, slowly being augmented by NAVDAT (HF data)https://www.iho.int/iho_pubs/CB/B-7/Pubs/Eng/B-7_e_2025.pdf
GMDSS digital selective calling (DSC) messages1999 (full GMDSS phase-in)IMO + ITU-RITU-R M.493/M.541 message format on VHF/MF/HF DSC channelsActive; under modernisation by IMO MSChttps://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Safety/Pages/GMDSS.aspx
POLREP (Pollution Report)1990 (OPRC Convention)IMO MEPCFixed-form text report (alpha-headers A–X) used by states to report marine pollution incidentsActive; mandatory under MARPOL Annex I + OPRChttps://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/Pages/Pollution-Response.aspx
S-211 Port Call Message2018 (S-200-style product spec)IALA + STM / International PortCDM CouncilGML/XML port-call timestamp messages (ETA/ETD, RTA, ATA, ATD); IALA S-200 familyActive, low-volume adoption; tied to PortCDM / Sea Traffic Managementhttps://www.iala.int/technical/data-modelling/iala-s-200-development-status/s-211/
SafeSeaNet (SSN) XML2002 (EU Dir. 2002/59/EC)EMSAEU vessel-traffic monitoring XML reports (notifications, port calls, hazmat, security)Active; mandatory for all EU port callshttps://www.emsa.europa.eu/safeseanet.html
VTS messages (IALA V-103/A-124)V-103: 1998; A-124 VTS data exchange: 2017IALAOperational VTS reporting; S-201 (AtoN data) and S-240 (VTS) under S-100Active; modernisation under S-100 familyhttps://www.iala.int/

Tier 3 family table — Container shipping (EDIFACT family)

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
UN/EDIFACT BAPLIE1989 (D.89B); v3.1.1 / D.13B current de-factoUN/CEFACT, curated by SMDGBayplan/stowage plan, occupied + empty positions; container-by-container payloadDominant container-stowage standard; D.13B 3.1.1 still in 2026 productionhttps://smdg.org/working-groups/baplie-movins/
UN/EDIFACT COPRARearly 1990sUN/CEFACT / SMDGContainer discharge/loading order from carrier to terminalActive, universal between lines and terminalshttps://service.unece.org/trade/untdid/d16a/trmd/coprar_c.htm
UN/EDIFACT COARRIearly 1990sUN/CEFACT / SMDGContainer discharge/loading report back from terminal to carrierActive, paired with COPRARhttps://service.unece.org/trade/untdid/d16a/trmd/coarri_c.htm
UN/EDIFACT CODECOearly 1990sUN/CEFACT / SMDGContainer gate-in / gate-out report at terminal or depotActivehttps://service.unece.org/trade/untdid/d16a/trmd/codeco_c.htm
UN/EDIFACT MOVINS1990sUN/CEFACT / SMDGStowage movement instructions accompanying BAPLIEActive, paired with BAPLIEhttps://smdg.org/working-groups/baplie-movins/
UN/EDIFACT VERMAS2016 (in response to 2016 SOLAS VGM amendment)SMDGVerification of gross mass; shipper → carrier → terminalMandatory de-facto since SOLAS Ch. VI Reg. 2 effective 1 July 2016https://smdg.org/working-groups/vermas-vgm/
UN/EDIFACT IFTMIN / IFTMBF1990sUN/CEFACTMulti-modal transport instruction (IFTMIN) / firm booking (IFTMBF)Active; dual-listed in retail-supplychainhttps://service.unece.org/trade/untdid/d16a/trmd/iftmin_c.htm
UN/EDIFACT TPFREP1990sUN/CEFACT / SMDGTerminal performance report (productivity, crane moves/hr)Active, nichehttps://service.unece.org/trade/untdid/d16a/trmd/tpfrep_c.htm

Tier 3 family table — DCSA modern container standards

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
DCSA Booking 2.02024 (2.0 final)Digital Container Shipping AssociationOpenAPI 3.x / JSON REST API; carrier booking lifecycleActive; “Final” released; carrier rollout in progresshttps://dcsa.org/standards
DCSA Bill of Lading 3.0 (eBL)2025 (3.0 final)DCSA + FIT AllianceJSON eBL with digital signature; +190 attributes for ICS2Active; underpins the “100% eBL by 2030” commitmenthttps://dcsa.org/standards/ebill-of-lading
DCSA Track & Trace 3.02026 (alpha Feb, beta Mar/Apr per DCSA Roadmap 2026)DCSAJSON REST event publication (transport, equipment, shipment events)Alpha / Beta; replaces T&T 2.xhttps://dcsa.org/newsroom/dcsa-standards-roadmap-2026
DCSA Documentation2022+DCSAShipping instructions, B/L, arrival notice, packing listActive, version-tracked alongside eBLhttps://dcsa.org/standards/documentation
DCSA Operational Vessel Schedule (OVS) 3.02025 (3.0 Beta 1)DCSAUniversal service-reference coding for sailing schedulesActive; Beta 1 releasedhttps://dcsa.org/newsroom/dcsa-releases-standards-for-operational-vessel-schedules-3-0
DCSA Industry Blueprint2023+DCSAProcess + data architecture spanning all DCSA sub-standardsActive (architectural reference)https://dcsa.org/standards/industry-blueprint
eBL (Electronic Bill of Lading)Bolero 1998; TradeLens (defunct 2022); DCSA + FIT Alliance push 2023+FIT Alliance (BIMCO/DCSA/FIATA/ICC/SWIFT)Various legal frames (MLETR, eIDAS, UK ETDA 2023, IN BoL Act 2025) over DCSA JSON or platform-specific formatsActive push, ~50% commitment by 2028 / 100% by 2030https://www.fit-alliance.org

Tier 3 family table — Hydrographic / charts

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
IHO S-57 ENC (Electronic Navigational Chart)1996International Hydrographic OrganizationBinary ISO/IEC 8211 encoding of vector chart features; the legacy ECDIS data formatActive dominant; “dual-fuel” period running ~2026–2035 alongside S-101https://iho.int/en/standards-and-specifications
IHO S-100 frameworkEdition 1.0 (2010); operational Phase 1 in force Jan 2026IHOUML/GML/XML feature-catalogue framework; ISO 19100-aligned successor to S-57Phase 1 in force Jan 2026; full transition ~2029–2035https://iho.int/en/the-s-100-framework-is-now-operational
S-101 ENCPhase 1 in force Jan 2026IHOS-100 product specification — next-generation ENC; replaces S-57 ENCOptionally available for ECDIS from 1 Jan 2026; mandatory for new ships 1 Jan 2029https://www.admiralty.co.uk/news/s-57-s-101-explaining-iho-standards-ecdis
S-102 (bathymetric surface)Phase 1 in force Jan 2026IHOHigh-resolution bathymetry product specificationIn force Jan 2026https://iho.int/en/the-s-100-framework-is-now-operational
S-104 (water level)Phase 1 in force Jan 2026IHOTide and water-level information product specIn force Jan 2026https://iho.int/en/the-s-100-framework-is-now-operational
S-111 (surface currents)Phase 1 in force Jan 2026IHOSurface currents product spec; integrates with S-101 ECDIS overlayIn force Jan 2026https://iho.int/en/the-s-100-framework-is-now-operational

Tier 3 family table — Regulatory / safety / port-call

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
IMO FAL forms / Maritime Single WindowFAL Convention 1965; e-mandate 2019; MSW mandatory 1 Jan 2024IMO Facilitation CommitteeHarmonised arrival/stay/departure declarations (FAL 1–7); national MSW portalsMandatory since 1 Jan 2024; ~60% of calls still partly paper per 2025 surveyshttps://www.imo.org/en/ourwork/facilitation/pages/falconvention-default.aspx
IMO Compendiumv1 2020, ongoingIMO + WCO + UN/CEFACT + ISO + IHOHarmonised maritime data set / data dictionary backing FALActive, maintained jointly with WCO/UN/CEFACT/ISOhttps://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Facilitation/Pages/IMOCompendium.aspx
CMI Rules / Rotterdam RulesCMI 1897; Rotterdam Rules adopted 2008, not yet in forceComité Maritime International / UNCITRALLegal-process framework for carriage of goods by sea; not a DSL but cited by eBL legal stacksLegal framework; Rotterdam Rules ratification stalled (5 ratifiers vs 20 needed)https://comitemaritime.org/

Notable threads

  • AIS is the world’s largest open vessel-tracking dataset. Every commercial vessel over 300 GT on international voyages and every passenger ship transmits AIS continuously per SOLAS V/19. Terrestrial receivers (MarineTraffic, VesselFinder, NAIS), satellite constellations (Spire, ORBCOMM, exactEarth/Hawkeye 360 acquired 2022, Kpler post-acquisition of Spire’s maritime arm 2024) aggregate hundreds of millions of position reports per day. The bit-level format — 6-bit ASCII armour over ITU-R M.1371 binary inside NMEA !AIVDM — looks archaic, but every receiver, decoder, and dataset speaks it, which is exactly why it has not been replaced. The 27 message types codified in M.1371-5 (2014) remain the working surface.

  • IMO FAL Maritime Single Window mandate (1 Jan 2024) is the biggest regulatory event in modern port digitalisation. FAL 46 (May 2022) adopted amendments making it mandatory for public authorities to establish, maintain and use SW systems for the seven core FAL declarations. The 2024 effective date is the regulatory equivalent of MTF Refit or SEPA SCT Inst — a hard deadline that forces every port authority to publish APIs. Real-world rollout has lagged badly: per IMO’s own Maritime Single Window 2024 symposium and follow-on surveys, over 60% of port calls in 2024–2025 still required paper or hybrid submissions, and the IMO Compendium remains the harmonisation target rather than the lived reality. The unevenness has prompted resolution FAL.16(47) accelerating implementation.

  • EDIFACT’s persistence in container shipping is one of the most striking examples of incumbency in computing. BAPLIE D.95B is from 1995 and D.13B from 2013 — yet BAPLIE 3.1.1 on D.13B is still the dominant in-production version moving most of the world’s container stowage data in 2026. The reason is the same as for SWIFT MT in correspondent banking: the network of bilateral integrations is the moat, every terminal operating system (Navis N4, TBA, CyberLogitec OPUS, Konecranes TOS) and every carrier’s IT estate is wired for the EDIFACT shape, and the cost of coordinated migration is enormous. SMDG’s recent activity is mostly minor schema increments rather than replacement.

  • DCSA is the coordinated modernisation effort, and 2026 is the inflection year. Founded in 2019 by Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and ONE (now 9 of the top 10 carriers, joined by CMA CGM, Evergreen, Yang Ming, HMM, ZIM), DCSA publishes JSON/REST OpenAPI specifications that explicitly target replacement of the BAPLIE/COPRAR/COARRI/CODECO family. Booking 2.0 and eBL 3.0 went final in 2024–2025; Track & Trace 3.0 enters alpha in Feb 2026 with beta in Mar/Apr; OVS 3.0 Beta 1 is out. The 2026 DCSA Standards Roadmap signals a shift from publishing new majors to refining versions driven by real-world implementation feedback — a tell that the standards portfolio is maturing.

  • eBL legal scaffolding finally caught up in 2023–2025, and the “100% eBL by 2030” commitment is the headline KPI. Nine DCSA carrier members (covering ~70% of global TEU capacity) publicly committed to 50% eBL adoption by 2028 and 100% by 2030. The UK Electronic Trade Documents Act (2023), India’s Bills of Lading Act (2025) and MLETR-aligned regimes in Singapore, Bahrain, France and the UAE removed most of the long-standing “is it transferable?” legal blockers. But 2026 still operates in a “hybrid” regime — an eBL legal in London may need to be reprinted to paper at a non-MLETR port, leaving documents in what one analyst called a “schizophrenic” legal status. The FIT Alliance (BIMCO, DCSA, FIATA, ICC, SWIFT) is the cross-industry coordinator.

  • VERMAS / SOLAS VGM (1 July 2016) is the cleanest example of a regulatory event spawning a new EDIFACT message. When SOLAS Ch. VI Reg. 2 was amended in May 2014 to require shippers to verify container gross mass before loading (effective July 2016), SMDG developed VERMAS within 12–18 months as a small, single-purpose EDIFACT message — explicitly designed not to be overloaded with optional fields. Compliance is now universal among SMDG carriers and most major shippers/forwarders route VGM through VERMAS or DCSA’s REST-equivalent. It is one of the few EDIFACT messages that came after the major API/REST wave (2010s) and still got built in EDIFACT, because the carrier/terminal integration substrate demanded it.

  • The IHO S-100 transition (S-57 → S-101) and PortCDM / S-211 are the slow-burning structural shifts. S-100 framework Phase 1 product specifications entered into force in January 2026, S-101 ECDIS is optionally available from 1 January 2026 and mandatory for new ships from 1 January 2029, with a ~decade-long dual-fuel S-57/S-101 period during which hydrographic offices produce both. In parallel, IALA’s S-211 Port Call Message (an S-200-family product spec originating in the EU MONALISA 2.0 / STM validation projects) and the International PortCDM Council push standardised port-call timestamp exchange (ETA/ETD/RTA/ATA/ATD) as the layer above MSW. Predictability gains of 25–75% have been demonstrated in STM testbeds; production adoption is still patchy and lives alongside, not above, the FAL/EDIFACT stack.

Citations

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