Autonomy in Shipping and the key question, “What do Ship-owners want and need?”

The Chamber has been carrying out research into digitalisation and has engaged with members to find out their own progress and what the areas of most interest are. Thus the Chamber has decided that the next best step would be to host an event where members would have a chance to have an update on Automation and Digitalisation from different sectors, with the overall aim being to give members a chance to give their views on how they see the direction of this and most importantly what they actually want.

This event will take place on Wednesday 5th September at the UK Chamber of Shipping offices. 

Further details on programme and timings will follow, but please do save the date in the meantime. If you have any questions regarding this event, please do contact Jenny Atkinson. 

Digitalisation and the increasing use and financing towards the use of more digitalised and automated ways of working within shipping had been a topic of increasing consideration for some time, with the momentum firmly remaining in 2018 with the IMO commissioning a regulatory scoping exercise at it’s meeting of the Maritime Safety Committee in May, which has finally got the regulatory ball moving. 

Along with the numerous assured benefits of this increase in digitalisation such as increases in safety and decreases in costs there are the warnings that the shipping industry has to embrace the change to avoid falling behind and risk the push being taken out of their hands by other parties such as the charterers, as demonstrated by the Yara Birkeland, and potentially Amazon as they move to further control their supply chain. 

The Government has shown its enthusiasm for this topic with Technology being one of the six themes in the Government’s long term strategy to secure the future of the UK maritime sector, entitled as “Maritime 2050.” Additionally in the recently released DfT Maritime Annual Report where the Government’s ambitions for the coming year were stated, a focus on technology was emphasised which includes publishing a Smart Shipping policy route map and playing a leading role as the IMO begin to explore the regulation of autonomous vessels.