BridgeView

Terms

Last updated 31 October 2026

BridgeView is a free hobby project that shows ships near the Blue Water Bridge and can alert you before one goes under it. By using the website or the iPhone app you agree to these terms. If you don't, please don't use them.

Not for navigation

Don't use BridgeView for navigation, collision avoidance or anything to do with safety. It's for watching ships, nothing more. Ship positions come from AIS, the radio signals ships broadcast. That data can be late, wrong or missing: not every vessel carries a transponder, some turn theirs off, and our antenna and data feeds miss signals and go down. On the water, use official charts, proper navigation equipment, a lookout and the Coast Guard's notices.

Times and alerts are estimates

Arrival times are worked out from each ship's last reported speed and course, and change when it slows down, speeds up, stops or turns. Alerts are sent on a best-effort basis: they may come early, late or not at all, and a ship may go under the bridge without one. Don't plan anything you can't afford to miss around them.

Other people's content

Ship photos and details come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons under their contributors' licences, and from people who share them in the app, and may be wrong or out of date. Cargo is a guess from the ship's destination. Map data, imagery, the ship cams and the sites we link to (VesselFinder, MarineTraffic, Wikipedia, YouTube) belong to others and have their own terms. We don't control them and aren't responsible for them.

Photos you share

You can send BridgeView photos of ships from the iPhone app. By sending one, you confirm that you took it yourself (or otherwise have the right to share it), and that it doesn't show anything private or anyone who hasn't agreed to be in it.

You keep the copyright. You give BridgeView a free, worldwide, permanent and irrevocable licence to use, copy, resize, crop, edit and show the photo in the app, on the website and anywhere else BridgeView appears, and to let others do so on our behalf (for example, the services that store and deliver it). If you give a name, we show it with the photo; if you don't, the photo isn't credited. We don't pay for photos.

Every photo is checked before it appears, and we may decline, remove or stop showing any photo at any time without saying why. We may block anyone who sends photos that aren't theirs, aren't of ships, or are offensive, from sharing again. To have a photo you shared taken down, email us with the ship's name and roughly when you sent it.

Using the service fairly

Please don't:

Some of the data comes from feeds whose own terms forbid passing it on, so we may block access that breaks these rules.

No warranty

BridgeView is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including that it will be accurate, complete, timely, uninterrupted or fit for any particular purpose. We may change, pause or stop the website, app, alerts or API at any time without notice.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we aren't liable for any loss or damage of any kind that comes from using BridgeView or relying on it, including missed ships, missed or wrong alerts, and decisions made from its data. Some places don't allow these limits, so some of them may not apply to you.

The iPhone app

The app is licensed to you under Apple's standard licence agreement, together with these terms. Apple isn't responsible for the app or its content.

The code

BridgeView's source code is open under the MIT licence. That licence covers the code; these terms cover the service we run with it.

Changes and questions

If these terms change, the date at the top will change with them, and using BridgeView after that means you accept the new terms. Questions: email [email protected] or open an issue on GitHub. See also about BridgeView and the privacy policy.