Page 31: of Marine News Magazine (January 2018)

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AUTONOMOUS PASSENGER VESSELS

Automated now;

EVOLVE autonomous looms large in the center porthole.

By Barry Parker he word ‘Autonomous’ is probably the maritime in- dustry’s most frequently used term in the past year.

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The word, however, has a far different meaning than the similarly sounding “Automated” – which means that certain processes are handled by machines, rather than by humans. Throughout 2017, industry thought leaders have been mulling over the new digital paradigms that are emerging including the ‘Internet of Things’ and/or the linkage of processes and machines – the ‘Fourth Industrial

Revolution’ – where devices talk to each other, and other emerging disrupters.

WHEN & WHERE

Dr. Roar Adland, Professor at the Norwegian School of

Economics (NHH), and Chairman of the Shipping De- partment, parsed the relative economic value (focusing on reduced crewing costs) among shipping sectors. He wrote, in early 2017: “All told, unmanned vessels would likely have a role to play in coastal and shortsea shipping, where port-time and crew costs takes up a relatively large share, and where accommodation takes up a relatively larger part of the vessel.”

These ideas are no longer just lofty concepts; tangible projects employing them have moved from the drawing board to reality. Even crewless vessels are no longer the stuff of futurists; on the west coast of Norway – an area where emissions are prohibited – in the “Fjord1” project, two battery powered passenger/car carrying ferries will shuttle the 1.5 mile stretch across the Nordfjord (about 100 miles north of Bergen), linking Anda and Lote. Hu- man captains aboard the vessels, to be delivered in early 2018, will handle dockings only.

In a mid-November speech at the Annual General Meet- ing of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters (AIMU), Christopher Wiernicki, ABS Chairman, Presi- dent and CEO, explained that: “An autonomous ship … is www.marinelink.com MN 31