Transas: Shipping is not to be significantly affected by deactivation of GPS stations placed in Russia

Deactivation of GPS stations placed in Russia will not have any significant impact on shipping, Dmitry Lagutin, Director General of Transas Navigator (Transas Group) told IAA PortNews. 

“Deactivation of land stations of the US’s Global Positioning System (GPS) located in Russia will not entail any critical changes in marine or river shipping. If Russia ceases providing data, slight loss of GPS positioning accuracy is expected but it will be noticeable primarily for specialists requiring exceptional accuracy of positioning (geodesic, military or other applications). 

However, common users will not face any noticeable consequences: several meters of deviation in open water is not significant for a vessel moving along a certain route. As for areas of intense shipping (ports, hydraulic engineering facilities etc.), the operations are visually controlled, supervised by pilots and corrected from the shore for safety purposes. 

Ship owners using mobile application iSailor should not be concerned about GPS signal degradation as smartphones and Apple tablets have been supporting Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS for several years already. So, deactivation of GPS land stations will not generally affect the shipping,” Dmitry Lagutin comments.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Ministry Dmitry Rogozin threatened to deactivate all GPS infrastructure operating in Russia if the U.S. does not allow Russia to place Glonass stations in U.S.