A Navigating Navigator Onboard or a Monitoring Operator Ashore? Towards Safe, Effective, and Sustainable Maritime Transportation: Findings from Five Recent EU Projects

AbstractThis paper aims to summarize and make some conclusions from findings of five EU project during the period 2009–2015. In the ACCSEAS project (2012–2015) the future accessibility of the North Sea region was investigated from a shipping perspective. The EfficienSea project (2009–2012) and the two MONALISA projects (2010–2013, and 2013–2015) investigated Sea Traffic Management (STM) as a way to optimize ship traffic that might satisfy safety and efficiency demands as well as the demands for lower emissions. The paper will look in detail on the navigational solutions and the user tests that has been done with ship officers, pilots and VTS operators.The EU commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% to 2050 is another factor acting on the shipping industry. By “slow steaming” and just-in-time-arrival, substantial reduction in emissions can be made.A surprising finding was the large number of planned offshore windmill installations in the North Sea. Managing a growing number of ships in a shrinking sea space will led to issues of who is in control: the master onboard or the central coordination mechanism overseeing the whole traffic situation. The task of the mariner risk being reduced to keeping the ship in a time-slot-box, monitoring an ever better automation. In addition, slower speeds lead to longer voyages, which risk being less socially attractive. Lack of competent seafarers is already today a problem. Finally, the issue of unmanned ships will be considered, the MUNIN project (2013–2015), Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks. Even before this project has finished the industry has picked up some of these new possibilities and has proposed different solutions for unmanned ships, one of them electrical, with zero emission