🕒 Article read time: 2 minutes
Abandon ship... are crewless vessels about to become a reality?
A recent forum convened by HPC Hamburg Port Consulting (HPC) as part of its Connecting Ports talk show series discussed the possibility of autonomous ships transporting goods along coastlines, inland waterways, within cities and even perhaps on the high seas.
Christina Prieser, Associate Partner at HPC, discussed the future world of water-borne logistics with three experts: Ørnulf Jan Rødseth, General Manager, Norwegian Forum for Autonomous Ships (NFAS); Marc Holstein, Head of the Remote Operation Center at SEAFAR in Antwerp and Antoon van Collie, CEO of ZULU Associates.
Rødseth opened the debate with strong evidence that semi-autonomous vessels are already operating on coastal services in Norway.
“Since spring 2022, the world's first semi-autonomous container ship has been transporting mineral fertiliser from the Yara production facility in Porsgrunn to the regional export port in Brevik," said Rosdeth.
"The vessel is actually autonomous but still operates with a crew of three and is remotely controlled from a control center.
"Seafar technology is currently deployed on over 40 vessels mostly inland ships, of which a majority are already operating with reduced crew and are remotely controlled," remarked Holstein.
“Three of these vessels navigate the Rhine between the Netherlands and Bonn. We have been operating crew-reduced and partially automated ships from a control centre for four years.
"The demand is there and the system can be seamlessly integrated into the existing infrastructure and traffic flow, especially in Belgium.”
In New York, plans exist to load pallets into small containers on small inland vessels, which will then transfer the goods to cargo bikes or electric vehicles for the last mile using their onboard cranes.
While in Paris two small ZULU inland vessels are already employed for urban logistics. One of these is capable of being fuelled by hydrogen. Van Collie envisions this concept for cities like Hamburg or Berlin as well.
In Norway, by 2026 the food retailer ASKO plans to replace 50 road trailers per day with water using two battery-powered, semi-autonomous ro-ro ships on the Oslo Fjord.
Holstein explained that remote control actually increases the levels of operational safety. Eight-hour shifts for captains onshore are significantly less tiring than the 12-14 hour shifts often required on board.
Alexandra Herdman, Senior Policy Manager, Logistics UK said: “Innovation across logistics is vital for the sector to grow and to meet net zero targets. Automation will have a role to play in the future of the supply chain.
"Whilse this example from Europe is an interesting initiative, in the UK we must retain the focus of policy on moving more freight via our waterways to make innovation like this make sense in the UK context.”
The full session Connecting Ports #08 is available here.
Published On: 29/08/2024 12:50:05
Comments Section
If you are a Logistics UK member login to add comments.
