Abstract
This study investigates the competitiveness of various autonomous ship categories for container shipping in the Arctic route. We propose a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework using four ship categories as alternatives and eight criteria for competitiveness evaluation. We analyse collected data using the Best–Worst Method (BWM), one of the recently developed MCDM methods. The findings reveal that operating expenses, navigation aspects, and environmental protection are the three most important criteria for deploying autonomous ships in the Arctic route. Among the three investigated autonomous ships alternatives, the semi-autonomous ship operated from a shore control centre (SCC) is prioritized for Arctic shipping in the foreseeable future, when benchmarked against the conventional ship. The SCC-controlled semi-autonomous ship alternative is competitive in the majority of the considered criteria including operating expenses, capital expenses, navigation, ship-shore and ship–ship communication, search and rescue, and environmental protection.
Highlights
Sea ice has been declining continuously with a reduction of about 40% in the past 40 years [1]
This study has provided academia, policymakers, and maritime industry players with new information regarding the potential for further developments and application of autonomous shipping in the Arctic
The collection and analysis of primary data from contemporary experts of both Arctic and autonomous shipping, is of great importance to major stakeholders, because some of the challenges and obstacles of Arctic shipping development, in a strategic perspective, is thereby identified. It would be a waste of efforts if the maritime industry and governments were making inefficient use of existing research and development resources and thereby were unable to identify the major obstacles for shipping in the Arctic, and implications of technology developments for the further reduction of on-board manning, ascribing instead its development efforts to deficiencies among the least important criteria as identified in this paper, and thereby erroneously initiated and/or continued with an investment program not highlighting the most important criteria
Summary
Sea ice has been declining continuously with a reduction of about 40% in the past 40 years [1]. This decline leads to increased interest and efforts to establish new sea trade routes via the Arctic [2]. The Arctic offers three shipping routes—the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the Northwest. Maritime Institute, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. The NSR and NWP offer a shorter shipping distance between Asia and the European continent, and between Asia and the North American continent, respectively, in comparison with the current routes through the Suez and Panama Canals [5]. Shortening the sailing distance by about 40% [7] can reduce the shipment time by 7–14 days, when compared with the Suez Canal Route [8]
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