Disruptive Technologies

in International Shipping

Implications for Safe Navigation

Rod Nairn, AM

Chief Executive Officer, Shipping Australia Limited

www.shippingaustralia.com.au

A peak national industry body comprising 29 shipping lines and

shipping agents and 50 corporate associate members

Shipping lines/agents involved with 70% of Australia’s container

trade and car trade and over 60% of the bulk and break-bulk

trade

Our members employ more than 2,000 staff in 230 offices in 41

Australian ports

Provide towage and cruise ships

SAL publishes an industry magazine

and electronic newsletter eSignal

Shipping Australia Limited – who we are

A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S

Asiaworld Shipping Services Pty Ltd

Austral Asia Line Pte Ltd

BBC Chartering Australia Pty Ltd

CMA CGM Group Agencies

(Australia & New Zealand) Ply Ltd

Evergreen Marine Australia Pty Ltd

Gulf Agency Company (Australia)

Pty Ltd

Hamburg Sud Australia Pty Ltd

Hapag-Lloyd Australia Pty Ltd

Inchcape Shipping Services

K Line (Australia) Pty Ltd

LBH Australia Pty Ltd

Mediterranean Shipping Co (Aust)

Pty Ltd

Shipping Australia Limited – full members

Mitsui OSK Lines (Australia) Pty Ltd

Monson Agencies Australia Pty Ltd

Neptune Pacific Line

NYK Line (Australia) Pty Ltd

OOCL (Australia) Pty Ltd

Pacific Asia Express Pty Ltd

Quay Shipping Australia Pty Ltd

Seaway Agencies Pty Ltd

Ship Agency Services Pty Ltd

Smit Lamnalco Australia Pty Ltd

Svitzer Australia Pty Ltd

The China Navigation Company

Pte Ltd

Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics

Wilhelmsen Ships Service

We monitor and engage in many areas of direct interest to our

members:

Infrastructure

Shipping trade innovation

Environment

Maritime security/piracy

Industrial relations

Regulation

Costs, charges, levies, gst

Border agencies

We help members comply with rules and regulations,

We help governments develop better shipping related policies

Shipping Australia Limited – what we do

The importance of shipping to Australia

What’s about disruptive technologies?

• The changes we have seen

• The potential for change

• Risks and benefits of new technologies

What’s next?

Some conclusions

Disruptive Technologies in International Shipping

Implications for Safe Navigation

The Navigation Challenge

Despite generations of innovation and evolution, the basic

challenge of navigation remains the same…

to safely manoeuvre a vessel from departure to destination,

avoiding obstructions, through variously charted oceans and

subject to variable weather, sea and traffic conditions.

Setting the scene

The importance of shipping

2014/15 Maritime Trade

contributed:

$424 bn pa maritime trade

$227.5 bn exports

$197.4 bn imports

1548 million tonnes cargo

5475 individual cargo ships

Almost 30,000 port calls

Australia has the fourth largest international sea-freight task in

the world measured in tonnes per kilometre carried

Much of this is due to bulk cargo – supporting our economy

Two largest coal ports in the world – Newcastle and Hay Pt

Largest Iron Ore port – Port Hedland

Only 2 container ports in the top 100 (2016)

Melb 58 (2.49m), Syd 66 (2.15m)

Coastline spans 30,000 kilometres

2014-15 we imported $197 billion of products and exported $228

billion by sea

5475 cargo ships made 29,595 calls at 79 Australian ports

The Australian sea-freight task

Almost everything we buy, sell or use comes by sea:

• Furniture, clothing & electronics

• Most building materials

• Much of our food

• Our cars

• The fuel for our cars

• Recreational items – sporting equipment and toys

• Heavy equipment for farming, mining and manufacturing

• Raw materials and fertilizers

We can’t survive without shipping, and we

wouldn’t want to

• Capability – provides something new or unthought of

• Potential – enables massive innovation

• Availability – can be accessed broadly

• Affordability – is considered value for money

Eg GPS (GNSS):

✓ Provides position – all the time, accurately

✓ Enabled - global tracking of everything – position

exchange

✓ Available - everywhere you can see the sky

✓ No cost to utilise

What makes a disruptive technology?

Disruptive technologies…

they come and they go

1950’s – Television replaced radio as the mass communication media

1960’s - The cassette player made recording sound portable

1970’s – VHS video players brought picture recording to the masses –

but video recording was invented in 1956

1980’s – Personal computers, floppy discs (the first hard disc personal

computer – 128k RAM, 20mb HD - $7500)

1990’s – The internet, mobile phone, WiFi, Bluetooth, digital cameras

2000’s - Flat screen TVs (invented in 1964), hard disk then solid state

recorders,

- The smart phone (invented in 1992 IBM but brought to the masses

by Apple i-phone in 2007)

2010’s – Smartwatch, 3D printer, cryptocurrencies, the Blockchain, affordable

SATCOM – 3G-4G-5G wireless data

Disruptive technologies you might remember

14

• Pre 1900

- Paper chart

- Compass

- Sextant

- Lead line

- Time - Marine Chronometer

- Tide Pole

- Flag signals/ Semaphore

- Steamships

• 1900-1920

- Taut Wire Machine

- Current meters

- Tide gauges

- Gyro compass

- HF Radio (Morse code)

- Flashing light

- Log tables and sight reduction tables

• 1940- 1970

- Echo sounder

- Electronic Position Fixing - 2 range and hyperbolic Decca/Loran/Omega

- Searchlight SONAR

- Radar

- VHF marine radio

Disruptive technologies in hydrography and navigation(before my time)

15

• 1970 to 2010

- Transit SATNAV

- Electronic watches

- Electronic calculators

- Computer data acquisition and processing

- Satellite Communications

- Multibeam echosounder

- Side Scan Sonar

- GPS – DGPS, RTK, PPS

- Remotely operated vehicles

- Satellite tide measurement

- STD & Oceanographic Sensors

- Expendable Sensors

Disruptive technologies in hydrography and navigation

• 1970 to 2010

- Lidar bathymetry

- Lidar scanning

- Satellite bathymetry

- Acoustic positioning

- Autonomous surface vessels

- Satellite weather monitoring

- Waverider buoys

- Ocean gliders

- Global ocean modelling

- Ocean weather routing

- -Electronic Charting Systems (ECS)

- Digital Cameras

• 2010 to today

- Electronic navigational chart (ENC) - Official

- ECDIS - mandated

- Autonomous underwater vehicles

- Remote controlled tugs trialed

- Wind power assistance

- Magnetic berthing systems

- Video drones

- Lidar vessel movement monitoring

- Automatic berthing?

- LNG and Electric ships

1908 – Gyro compass introduced in German Navy – Paper

charts – HF Radio mandated

1930’s – The echo sounder began to replace lead line and

sounding machines

1950’s – Radar commonly fitted to ships

1960’s - Radio positioning systems Decca / Loran / Omega

appeared

1970’s – Transit satellite navigation - ocean fixing without

star sights!

1980’s – Inmarsat provides global communications – Traffic

separation schemes

1990’s – GPS allows ships to fix position more accurately

than the surveyors who made the charts - DGPS

augmentation

Disruptive technologies in navigation (1)

2000’s – GMDSS – DSC on HF and

VHF.

- Integrated Control Systems and

unmanned engine rooms

- VTS introduced widely

- GPS “jitter” removed –more GNSS

systems – robust and reliable

- AIS mandated showing traffic within

VHS range (coastal states found out

where ships were really going)

- PPUs utilised by pilots

Disruptive technologies in navigation (2)

2010’s - S-AIS developed global ship

tracking

- ENC coverage / ECDIS mandatory

- Mona Lisa project - sea traffic

management through route

information exchange

- Remote controlled tugs trialed

- Wind power assistance

- Automatic berthing – trialed in

Norway

- Simulator qualification of deck

officers

Disruptive technologies in navigation (3)

- Video drones

- Lidar vessel movement monitoring

- Autonomous ship trials and IMO

regulatory review

The e-Navigation dream might be the

next big thing

IMO implementation plan agreed

A Standard S-mode for all ECDIS

systems

Standardised ship reporting format

Enhanced Vessel Data Exchange to

provide ship track exchange

IHO S-100 (geospatial info registry)

adopted by IMO as the framework for

exchange and update of multiple

marine data types

Satellite Based Augmentation System

(SBAS) – to improve the accuracy,

integrity and availability of GNSS –

making decimeter accuracy available

to marine users

Other technologies to support navigation

Risks of new technologies – example ECDIS

Dependent on full ENC coverage

Phased in from 2012 with compulsory

ECDIS general and type specific training

Problems:

• Training all crews at the right time

• Many different “Type Approved”

systems

• No pathway for software upgrade on

early systems

• Single data set but multiple pathways

• Ship inspectors not expert on systems

• ECDIS “induced” accidents claimed

• Of 4 accidents investigated – all were

found to be due to user error or lack of

proper planning – the HUMAN factor

Benefits of new technologies – example GBR Safety

The Great Barrier Reef is an invaluable marine park – and a vital shipping route

AMSA and IMO that have improved GBR safety include:

• The world’s first Particularly Sensitive Sea Area – allowed ship management and

compulsory pilotage for all ships – the REEFREP limit was extended following

Shen Neng grounding in 2010.

• REEFVTS monitors ship movements, pilotage compliance provides advice

• Underkeel Clearance Management implemented in Torres Strait

• Implementation of full ENC coverage and compulsory carriage of ECDIS (phased)

There were 9800 voyages through parts of the GBR in 2017. In 1996 there were an

average of 2.5 groundings per year, there have been none since full ENC coverage

was completed

Shipping is safer now than it has ever been.

UKCM System - UKC Corridor

Red (does not

meet UKCM

requirements)

Benefit – rapid

identification of

areas to be

avoided

Benefits of new technologies – example GBR Safety

The Great Barrier Reef is an invaluable marine park – and a vital shipping route

AMSA and IMO that have improved GBR safety include:

• The world’s first Particularly Sensitive Sea Area – allowed ship management and

compulsory pilotage for all ships – the REEFREP limit was extended following

Shen Neng grounding in 2010.

• REEFVTS monitors ship movements, pilotage compliance provides advice

• Underkeel Clearance Management implemented in Torres Strait

• Implementation of full ENC coverage and compulsory carriage of ECDIS (phased)

There were 9800 voyages through parts of the GBR in 2017. In 1996 there were an

average of 2.5 groundings per year, there have been none since full ENC coverage

was completed

Shipping is safer now than it has ever been.

The Big Talk in disruptive technology

Blockchain

Cyber security

Digital disruption

Robotics

Disruptive technology influence sectors - NOW

Communications

• SATCOM Broadband Internet at Sea

• S-100 and the Marine cloud concept

• SBAS – resilient PNT

Position

• GNSS – SBAS sub decimeter

continuous

• Lidar scanning in vicinity of port

Detection/Sensors

• FLIR/Lidar

• Drone video

Control

• Computing power & AI

• Remote control tugs

• Remote pilotage

• Autonomous ships

Information/Data

• Blockchain

• Data Storage capacity unbounded

The Human factor remains a weak link

- Ships are still crewed – lifeboat drills still cause accidents

- The human element is almost always a factor in maritime

accidents –

- Inadequate lookout, disorientation and uncertainty over an

other ships intentions -

- Pilots still climb aboard ships – there are pilot ladder accidents

International Shipping Regulation can’t keep up

- Is constrained by international diplomacy and sunk investment

Persistent limiting influences in navigation

What’s next?

Autonomous ships… no

Remote controlled tugs... Maybe

Remote pilotage….

Ready right now!

Shipping is an international business

The shipping industry wants global alignment for any new

equipment standards, reporting formats and reporting

requirements

Local or regional requirements increase complexity, are

detrimental to safety and add unnecessary cost to the industry

Shipping companies will invest to: support global aims, improve

safety, reduce GHG emissions, reduce operational overheads,

increase automation

Insurance costs of bleeding edge technologies with slow uptake

Regulation need realistic lead times – ships are designed for 20

years

What the shipping industry thinks..?

Today’s disruptive technology will be tomorrow’s norm or will

have become redundant

The biggest handbrake on new technology adoption is the

human element

Shipping in essentially international – regulation must be limited

the global consensus and takes time to implement

Shipping companies will invest in new technologies when they

can see a business case or business opportunity

Safer ships, less injuries, higher reliability, lower insurance

costs, lower fuel costs, better port access, lower port visit

costs – these are all drivers

Conclusions

Questions?