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Can autonomous ships help short-sea shipping become more cost-efficient?

Abstract

There is a strong political focus on moving cargo transportation from trucks to ships to reduce environmental emissions and road congestion. We study how the introduction of a future generation of autonomous ships can be utilized in maritime transportation systems to become more cost-efficient, and as such contribute in the shift from land to sea. Specifically, we consider a case study for a Norwegian shipping company and solve a combined liner shipping network design and fleet size and mix problem to analyze the economic impact of introducing autonomous ships. The computational study carried out on a problem with 13 ports shows that a cost reduction up to 13% could be obtained compared to a similar network with conventional ships.
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Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

  • Mohamed Kais Msakni
  • Abeera Akbar
  • Anna Kristine Almestad Aasen
  • Kjetil Fagerholt
  • Frank Meisel
  • Elizabeth Lindstad

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Ocean / Energi og transport
  • University of Kiel
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Year

2020

Published in

Operations Research Proceedings

ISSN

0721-5924

Page(s)

389 - 395

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository