An MTI score runs from 0 to 5, and 5 is the best. A vessel scoring 4.6 is highly transparent with low assessed risk. A vessel scoring 0.4 is the opposite.That direction catches people out, because many risk systems run the other way. Check it once against a vessel you know before you wire a threshold into anything.
Read the score as a prompt, not a verdict
A score reflects the information available when we assessed the vessel. It is not a legal finding, it does not designate a vessel as sanctioned, and it does not establish intent. Use it to decide where to look harder.
mtiScore is the composite. Behind it sit five category scores, each on the same 0 to 5 scale, each returned separately so you can weight them to your own risk appetite.
Field
Category
What it assesses
vesselScore
Vessel
Stability, history and recorded condition: age, defects, detentions, and changes of ownership, flag, name and MMSI
reportingScore
Reporting
Reliability and continuity of AIS reporting: coverage, spoofing occurrences, gap events and average gap duration
voyagesScore
Voyages
Operational activity and exposure: zone calls, time in zone, and ship to ship transfers in high risk zones
sanctionsScore
Sanctions
Association with a current sanctions designation or material regulatory restriction, from OFAC, EU, UN and UK authorities among others
emissionsScore
Emissions
Relative environmental performance, from a structured estimate of fuel use and CO2 output against a CII reference
Two of these behave in ways worth knowing about before you build on them.Sanctions can dominate the composite. A current designation from a major authority can place a vessel at the lowest outcome for that category, and a vessel with heavy sanctions exposure will carry a near zero composite whatever the other four say. Score the categories separately if you need to see past that.Emissions coverage is partial. The emissions analysis does not yet reach every vessel we score. Where we hold no emissions assessment, read the absence as missing coverage.
Every category on the full vessel record comes with a matching reason field: vesselReason, reportingReason, voyagesReason, sanctionsReason and emissionsReason. summary carries a plain English account of the composite.The reason fields and summary appear on the full vessel record wherever it is returned, alongside the scores.
A score on its own tells you about one ship. mtiVesselClass tells you which peer group we assessed it against, and GET /vessels/score-distribution returns the precomputed distribution for that class.
MTI classifies vessels with its own taxonomy for this purpose. It does not match PurpleTRAC's classification, so peer groups are not comparable across the two products.
No risk band label. The API returns mtiScore and mtiVesselClass. The named bands you may have seen in the MTI application are a presentation layer on top of the number, and they are not in this contract.
No indicator level detail. The reason fields explain a category. The individual indicators underneath are not exposed.
No score history. Every endpoint returns the current assessment with an updatedAt timestamp. To track change over time, store what you fetch.
No predicted score. The forecast shown in the MTI application is not part of this API.
