4 Ways AI Can Assist Minimising Maritime Accidents

Over the past 50 years, global maritime freight transportation has undergone remarkable developments. The international shipping industry is responsible for carrying the vast majority of international trade with its share ranging from 80 to 90 per cent of world trade. In terms of trade value, the shipping share accumulates between 60 and 70 per cent of trade.

4 Ways AI Can Boost Safety and Efficiency at Sea

Supported by the 2017 upswing in the world economy, global seaborne trade grew at the rate of 4 per cent, the fastest expansion recorded in a 5-year period. Total shipping volume reached 10.7 billion tons, ended 2017 with a total revenue of roughly USD166 billion. Container freight rate levers increased, which resulted in USD7 billion profit, with average earnings increased in all fleet segments, approximately USD11 thousand per day.

“Global maritime freight transportation revenue is estimated to reach USD205 billion by 2023 There are around 60,000 merchant ships, transporting every kind of cargo — including containerized and bulk commodities. Ship traffic has grown substantially denser, with the world fleet registered in over 150 nations, manned by over a million seafarers, which has raised the stakes of maritime safety and called for technology advances in the maritime industry.”

Despite decades of safety improvements, there were 1,036 large ships lost reported around the world over the past decade, according to AGCS’s Safety & Shipping Review 2019.

As reported In 2018, there was a total of 2,698 shipping incidents (casualties). And human behaviour is often a factor, in spite of years of developments in maritime safety regulation, training, technology, and risk management.

Reasons can range from crew members on phones or an over-reliance on other forms of technology, fatigue, time-, resource-, and commercial-pressure, or a failure of organizational culture and behaviour.

Fatal accidents such as the sinking of the El Faro in late 2015 and the grounding of the Costa Concordia in 2012. More recently, the “Sanchi” oil tanker collision in January 2018 and the loss of the “El Faro” in Hurricane Joaquin in late 2016, have all been linked to human behaviour errors.

It is estimated that 75 to 96 per cent of marine accidents involve human error. Additionally, human involvement reportedly accounted for roughly 75 per cent of the value of almost 15 thousand marine liability insurance claims from 2011 to 2016 — costing over USD1.6 billion.

As explained by Captain Rahul Khanna, Global Head of Marine Risk Consulting at AGCS, “Safety rules and regulations are in place and are mostly followed, but there are some aspects of human nature that we are not addressing as an industry. Understanding human behaviour and how it can lead to accidents is the missing link in the shipping industry today.”

The speed of innovation is increasing, especially with the rise of new digital industrial technologies known as Industry 4.0, underpinned by transformational technologies of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

With the mountain of data generated by the Internet of Things (IoT), AI and its human intelligence simulation power step in, recognise patterns, connect disparate data points, analyse, predict and proactively exhibit autonomous behaviour, where little or no human intervention is required.

Thanks to the rapid pace of developments in AI, there are numerous of unprecedented opportunities to enhance the performance of different industries and businesses. Even though the transport and logistics industry has been slower to introduce digital innovations than many other industries, according to McKinsey & Company’s prediction, it will be one of the industries that will experience the most value generation from this technology advancement, especially in minimising accidents at sea.