Abstract:

Due to the rapid development of technologies and growing digitalization, the future of maritime transportation is about to change from conventional crewed ships to skeleton crews for maintenance and service work up to completely unmanned vessels. Then, navigation will have to be carried out from ashore

According to IMO’s definition these ships are called Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) and they are categorized into four different levels. Beside ships that will be unmanned, there will be ships controlled by operators from a shore-based Remote Control Centre (RCC). While more research and development on autonomous shipping are conducted to test different technologies, it revealed that future navigators are required to develop different kind of situational awareness, when remotely navigating their ships.

Simulator experiments were developed, implemented and carried out to study the integration of MASS into existing traffic consisting of conventional ships. First operational procedures were drafted and exemplarily implemented for the sake of testing how to handle mixed traffic scenarios from the shore-based perspective of remote controllers and VTS operators respectively.

The outcome of a literature survey into technologies that potentially will support situational awareness in the future are considered to compare a navigator’s situation on board in relation to operators navigating ships from ashore.

In this paper first, preliminary results of ongoing research are presented in regards to training requirements for remote-control operators (RCO) of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS). Literature and relevant documents are surveyed. Outcome of empirical pilot studies into training requirements from the perspective of experienced shore-based operators in Vessel Traffic Service centres are identified and discussed. Suggestions of study participants regarding a future training scheme will be presented.

Keywords:

Maritime Education and Training, Unmanned Shipping, Remote Operation Center, Remote Control Operator.