{
  "name": "Warconomy maritime data evaluation",
  "asOf": "2026-06-05",
  "note": "A static evaluation framework for a possible future maritime / AIS monitoring layer. Warconomy does NOT do live ship tracking and this adds none. Criteria are generic and provider-neutral — no vendor claims, no live data, no vessel positions. No implementation until a specific source/API/legal decision is made.",
  "page": "https://warconomy.com/methodology/maritime-data",
  "notLive": "Warconomy is not a live AIS tracker, not a live ship tracker, and not a live closure monitor. It shows no vessel positions and no live open/closed status.",
  "criteria": [
    {
      "key": "source-provider",
      "question": "Who is the data source / provider, and is it authoritative or aggregated?",
      "whyItMatters": "AIS aggregators differ in coverage, latency, and reliability. An official authority (e.g. a canal/transit authority statistic) is preferable to an unofficial real-time aggregator for a citation engine.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "coverage",
      "question": "Does it cover the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea / Bab el-Mandeb with adequate quality?",
      "whyItMatters": "Terrestrial AIS coverage is patchy at distance from shore; satellite AIS fills gaps but varies by provider. Partial coverage must be disclosed, never implied as complete.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "latency",
      "question": "Is the data live or delayed, and by how much?",
      "whyItMatters": "Warconomy is not a real-time product. A delayed (e.g. daily/weekly) density or transit-count series fits the static model far better than a live feed and avoids implying live tracking.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "api-availability",
      "question": "Is there an API or a downloadable dataset, or only an interactive map?",
      "whyItMatters": "An interactive third-party map cannot be embedded or republished. A documented dataset/API with clear terms is required even to consider ingestion — and any ingestion remains out of scope until separately approved.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "free-tier",
      "question": "What does the free tier allow, and where does paid usage begin?",
      "whyItMatters": "The project rules forbid paid APIs by default. A capability that needs a paid plan is automatically out of scope until a cost decision is made by the maintainer.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "reuse-rights",
      "question": "Do the terms permit commercial reuse and redistribution of derived values?",
      "whyItMatters": "Publishing a derived figure (even a count) requires reuse rights. Many AIS terms prohibit redistribution; that would block publication regardless of technical feasibility.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "attribution",
      "question": "What attribution / licensing notice is required?",
      "whyItMatters": "Required attribution must be honored on every page that shows a derived value, exactly as the license states.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "caching",
      "question": "What caching / storage policy do the terms impose?",
      "whyItMatters": "A static site stores values at build time. Terms that forbid storage/caching are incompatible with a prerendered, no-runtime architecture.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "rate-limits",
      "question": "What are the rate limits, and are they compatible with manual, occasional reads?",
      "whyItMatters": "Warconomy refreshes by hand, so generous or irrelevant rate limits are fine — but limits that assume a live polling client signal a mismatch with the static model.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "historical-access",
      "question": "Is historical data available, so a value can be dated and re-verified?",
      "whyItMatters": "Every Warconomy figure needs an as-of date and must be re-checkable. A source that only exposes 'now' cannot back a dated, citable observation.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "data-quality",
      "question": "How are spoofing, gaps, and dark-activity handled in the data?",
      "whyItMatters": "AIS can be spoofed or switched off, especially by sanctioned 'shadow-fleet' vessels — exactly the ships of interest. Any derived figure must carry this caveat and must not be presented as ground truth.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "cost-risk",
      "question": "What is the cost risk (overages, plan changes, lock-in)?",
      "whyItMatters": "Unbounded or surprise cost is disqualifying for a static, no-paid-API product. Cost must be zero or a deliberately approved, bounded amount.",
      "blockingIfWrong": true
    },
    {
      "key": "implementation-complexity",
      "question": "How complex is safe implementation under the static, no-runtime rules?",
      "whyItMatters": "Anything requiring a runtime service, scheduled job, or background worker is out of scope by default. A manual, periodic transcription of an official figure is the only currently-permitted path.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    },
    {
      "key": "static-links-sufficient",
      "question": "Would clearly-labeled external links be sufficient instead of ingestion?",
      "whyItMatters": "Often the safest, lowest-cost answer: point readers to authoritative external live maps and official statistics rather than ingesting anything. This is the default unless ingestion is clearly justified and approved.",
      "blockingIfWrong": false
    }
  ],
  "roadmap": [
    {
      "layer": "Clearly-labeled external links",
      "description": "Point to authoritative third-party live maps and official transit statistics as external resources, with a note that Warconomy does not verify third-party live vessel positions.",
      "fitsStaticModel": "Best fit — no ingestion, no cost, no terms risk. Already the recommended near-term approach.",
      "status": "future investigation"
    },
    {
      "layer": "Official transit / revenue indicators (delayed)",
      "description": "Manually transcribe an official, dated canal/transit-authority or intergovernmental figure (transit count, net tonnage, or revenue) — the same workflow already used for other source-gated values.",
      "fitsStaticModel": "Good fit — dated, source-linked, re-verifiable. Gated today by PDF-only / inaccessible sources (see the Suez/Red Sea workbench item).",
      "status": "future investigation"
    },
    {
      "layer": "Delayed vessel-density snapshots",
      "description": "A periodic, delayed density indicator for a chokepoint region from a source whose terms permit publishing a derived value, presented as a dated snapshot — never as a live position.",
      "fitsStaticModel": "Possible only with a permissive, ideally free, dataset and explicit reuse rights. Requires a full criteria pass first.",
      "status": "future investigation"
    },
    {
      "layer": "Tanker / LNG transit counts",
      "description": "A dated count of tanker or LNG transits through a chokepoint, if an authoritative source publishes one in a re-verifiable form.",
      "fitsStaticModel": "Possible with an official/authoritative dated source; not from real-time scraping. Must not be conflated with price or revenue.",
      "status": "future investigation"
    },
    {
      "layer": "Insurance / freight indicators",
      "description": "War-risk insurance premiums or freight-rate indicators associated with chokepoint disruption, where a citable, non-paywalled source exists.",
      "fitsStaticModel": "Often paywalled today; would need an accessible, reusable source. Associative context, not a causal attribution.",
      "status": "future investigation"
    },
    {
      "layer": "Source / legal / API evaluation",
      "description": "Before any of the above ingests anything, run the full criteria checklist on the specific provider and record the decision (including 'links-only' or 'declined').",
      "fitsStaticModel": "A prerequisite gate, not a capability. No ingestion proceeds without this and a maintainer decision.",
      "status": "future investigation"
    }
  ],
  "externalLinkRules": [
    "Label any third-party AIS / live-map site clearly as external and third-party.",
    "Do not embed, scrape, mirror, or republish AIS data or vessel positions.",
    "State plainly that Warconomy does not verify third-party live vessel positions or live open/closed status.",
    "Prefer official authority statistics (canal/transit authorities, intergovernmental bodies) over unofficial real-time aggregators.",
    "Keep external links as references, not as a data source for any Warconomy observation."
  ],
  "futureItem": {
    "id": "maritime-monitoring",
    "title": "Evaluate live AIS / maritime data integration",
    "status": "future investigation",
    "priority": "medium",
    "summary": "Assess whether Warconomy could add a delayed maritime-monitoring layer (vessel density, tanker/LNG transit counts, or official transit/revenue indicators) for the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea — or whether clearly-labeled external links are sufficient.",
    "whyNotNow": "No source/provider has been evaluated against the criteria, and the project rules forbid scraping, paid APIs, runtime services, and scheduled jobs. Live AIS can also be spoofed or switched off by the shadow-fleet vessels of interest, so a derived figure would need heavy caveats. This needs a maintainer decision, not an automatic build.",
    "nextHumanAction": "Decide the approach: (a) links-only to authoritative external maps/statistics (the safe default), or (b) evaluate a specific provider against the criteria checklist and record the terms. No ingestion until a provider's terms, cost, reuse rights, and caching policy are confirmed and approved.",
    "noImplementationUntil": "A specific source/API/legal decision is made and recorded. No live tracking is implemented under the current rules.",
    "links": [
      {
        "label": "Maritime data evaluation",
        "href": "/methodology/maritime-data"
      },
      {
        "label": "Live-data architecture",
        "href": "/methodology/live-data"
      },
      {
        "label": "Chokepoints dashboard",
        "href": "/chokepoints/dashboard"
      },
      {
        "label": "Strait of Hormuz",
        "href": "/chokepoints/strait-of-hormuz/economic-impact"
      }
    ]
  }
}