The Future of Smart Shipping – 2024. The second edition to our highly popular 2020 report offers an in-depth analysis of the evolving landscape of smart shipping in the maritime industry, highlighting significant changes that have taken place over the last four years.
In the wake of global disruptions, the maritime industry has increasingly embraced digital interconnectivity to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and crew welfare. Valour Consultancy defines smart shipping as the utilisation of advanced technology and data–driven systems to enhance overall vessel performance and safety. This can be unmanned machinery spaces, the remote and automated monitoring of machinery, tank levels, and cargo, as well as data analytics that optimise vessel operations through predictive maintenance, and voyage/fuel optimisation. Furthermore, a vessel must have broadband capabilities such as VSAT or cellular and a vessel management system to utilise this technology. It should be noted that while a true smart ship does not include significant human input, as manual reporting results in data inaccuracies, many smart shipping solutions still utilise this form of data collection as it remains dominant in the maritime industry.
Included in the report is a comprehensive study of four major smart shipping vendor types: connectivity service providers, classification societies, data analytic companies, and maritime hardware companies. According to our report author, Alishia Sims: “Classification societies are a fascinating addition to the report as they have a symbiotic relationship with the smart shipping ecosystem. Their involvement goes further than certifying smart shipping technologies as societies offer digitalisation solutions, either in-house or through the purchase of software companies.”
Smart shipping solutions are increasingly expanding across the maritime industry with an expected commercial market of over $540 million in 2024. An interesting aspect of the market is that it is common for a vessel to hold multiple smart shipping solutions. Merchant shipping, followed by offshore energy are dominant applications, with the majority of subscriptions contained within the sectors. Nevertheless, passenger vessels, particularly cruise vessels, are unsurprisingly taking up solutions as early adopters and testing pools.
Across all applications, this adoption is primarily driven by cost savings associated with the implementation of technology, as well as the impact of environmental regulations.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News
