If you've spent time on MarineTraffic looking for a way to get an email when a vessel arrives at port, you'll have noticed it doesn't exist — at least not in any meaningful way for freight forwarders. MarineTraffic is an excellent vessel position tool, but it's built for looking up information, not for pushing alerts to you automatically.
This leaves a significant gap for anyone in logistics, freight forwarding, or port operations who needs to know the moment a vessel arrives — without having to constantly check manually.
What MarineTraffic does well
MarineTraffic is the most widely used AIS vessel tracking platform in the world. It gives you live position data for hundreds of thousands of vessels, historical tracks, port traffic information, and a huge amount of vessel detail. For looking up where a ship is right now, it's excellent.
The problem is it's entirely passive. You go to it. It doesn't come to you.
The alert gap
MarineTraffic does offer some notification features on paid plans, but they are limited and not designed for the freight forwarding use case. They don't reliably send an email the moment a specific vessel arrives at a specific port — which is exactly what freight forwarders, charterers, and logistics managers need.
The result is that most people working in maritime logistics end up doing the same thing: opening MarineTraffic multiple times a day, searching for their vessels, checking positions manually, and hoping they don't miss an overnight arrival.
What you actually need
What freight forwarders need is simple: add a vessel, specify a target port, and receive an email the moment that vessel arrives. No logging in. No manual checking. Just an alert in your inbox when something happens.
That's exactly what Portool does. It monitors your vessels using live AIS data every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day, and sends an instant email alert the moment a vessel arrives at your target port. You can also set alerts for departures and delays.
How it works
- Add a vessel using its IMO or MMSI number
- Enter the UN/LOCODE for your target port
- Choose arrival, departure, or delay alerts
- Receive an email the moment the event is detected
Setup takes under two minutes per vessel. From that point the monitoring is completely automatic — no MarineTraffic tab required.
Get email alerts when your vessels arrive at port.
Start your free trial →