ICT for Sustainable Shipping

When Titanic hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland in 1912, information about drifting icebergs had not reached the ship officers and navigators, and it took a long time before nearby vessels received a request for assistance. Maxim Gorkiy, which sailed into an ice belt southwest of Svalbard in 1989, experienced a similar lack of information. The hull was damaged, and passengers, crew, and ships were rescued due to extremely good weather conditions and courageous on-scene commanders. For both accidents, had the navigators on board received information in time, they would have been able to choose another and safer route, and the accidents could have been avoided. From the Titanic days up to now, the ICT maturity has grown rapidly. We are also heading for digital transformation in shipping, that we do not know the consequences of, but we know that shipping sector will be changed, and the ICT will be one of the most important driving factors for sustainability. In parallel with the development, we must ensure that the human interactions will be taken care of. Therefore, the introduction of new technology should include the “human in the loop,” the user aspects, and must have focus on the integration between Man, Technology, and Organization (MTO). In this chapter we will describe some of the central ICT solutions used for sustainable shipping and the way they are operated and give examples on existing and future trends that influence sustainability where the ICT’s role in the process is elaborated.