By
Alex Smith |
Technology group Wärtsilä has partnered with Carnival Maritime and the Hamburg Vessel Coordination Centre (HVCC) to successfully implement and test a new solution for just-in-time sailing.
Wärtsilä Navi-Port is a middleware which will be connected to Wärtsilä’s Fleet Operations Solution (FOS) system. The solution allows ships and ports to share information, allowing ships to automatically adjust their speed to achieve the optimal arrival time according to the conditions at the port. This allows ports to more efficiently plan their port and terminal operations.
The solution will reduce the issue of ship congestion in ports. Currently ships will often sail faster than necessary in order to obtain a berthing slot, burning additional fuel and producing more emissions as a result, yet still must wait at anchor before the pilot station. The project aimed to remove the need for these excessive speeds and the damaging impact caused by them.
“Wärtsilä’s Smart Marine Ecosystem approach is aimed at eliminating wasteful practices in shipping operations, and the Navi-Port solution does just that,” said Torsten Büssow, director of voyage at Wärtsilä. “Collaboration between industry stakeholders is a key enabler to our approach, and once again, this project shows what can be gained when the industry works together in a transparent and cooperative way.”
Using the data provided through the new solution, berth scheduler suggests a new requested time of arrival (RTA) if port conditions are incompatible with the planned time of arrival. The RTA is shared with Wärtsilä FOS and then sent directly to the vessel’s navigation system, along with an optimised, automatically calculated sailing speed. If the RTA is accepted by the captain, the ship’s speed is automatically adjusted to respond to the new arrival time. The changed estimated time of arrival (ETA) is constantly communicated to the port.
“We are committed to making cruising more sustainable, and to setting an example in greener and safer operations,” said Michael Salzmann, senior nautical superintendent for Carnival Maritime. “We have tested the solution with two of our ships, AIDAsol and the AIDAperla. The ships’ onboard Wärtsilä NACOS Platinum navigation systems were connected directly to HVCC, which allowed continuous communications, resulting in just-in-time arrivals in Hamburg.”
The solution has received approval in principle from classification society Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore for meeting its cyber security requirements. It is also the first commercially available ship-to-port communication platform to apply the port call message standard defined by the Sea Traffic Management validation project.
“Connectivity is now enabling new ways of working,” said Najmeh Masoudi, technology leader for smart ships at Bureau Veritas. As a class society, Bureau Veritas plays a critical role in helping ensure that the marine industry safely adopts new technologies. Bureau Veritas initiated the Smart Ship Programme a few years ago, so it feels like a natural fit for us to be a part of this important pilot.”