Planning and implementing actions for a sustainable marine transport: the experience of Navtec

The maritime transport sector is traditionally reluctant to endeavour new technologies and is still one of the most pollutant fields, due to the age of the worldwide sailing fleet and the lack in certain areas of stringent... [ view full abstract ]

The maritime transport sector is traditionally reluctant to endeavour new technologies and is still one of the most pollutant fields, due to the age of the worldwide sailing fleet and the lack in certain areas of stringent regulation in terms of gaseous emissions and controls. Shipping accounts for about the 2% of the carbon dioxide emission globally, a range between 18% and 30% of nitrogen dioxide and 9% of the Sulphur oxide. The regulation to reduce the emissions of the naval field has been introduced slowly and in limited areas of the globe, leaving actions to reduce the environmental impact to single operators willing to use the “green” claim on their fleets to improve the presence on the market. NAVTEC, a network of operators, shipbuilders and centres of research, has developed through the years a methodological approach to the technological transfer in order to implement inside the fleets of the partners a set of modification useful both to reduce the operative costs and the environmental impact, developing research project usually designed on two paths with different timeframes in order to give on one side a prompt return on the investment, and on the other side a wider perspective on the possible mid-term technologies, improving at the same time the partner’s loyalty.

The aim of this work is to analyze the methodological approach, developed by Navtec, as a best practice that could be applied also in other research fields characterized by a low technological level and, as a consequence, by a high environmental and social impact. The approach is identified by several steps starting from an idea or a proof of concept to get to the development and testing of an object (i.e. prototype or pre-commercial product) characterized by a high Technology Readiness Level (i.e. TRL). NAVTEC takes care of developing the project details in order to satisfy on one side the needs of the companies to reduce the operative costs and increase the productivity and the other the requirements of the EPRs to recover a sensible set of data for the research, with a particular focus on environmental effect of human activities. NAVTEC tries to create a win-win situation to give strength to the project proposal. SEAPORT project is a winning example of this approach. A test bed ferry ship has been instrumented to gather usage spectrum of data to allow the company to improve the use of certain systems of the ship, such as the azimuthal pods and the electrical system to identify the area of improvement, gathering data which allowed an average 10% of reduction in the by-route fuel consumption. At the same time the ship was fitted with air pollution monitoring which gave a comprehensive quantitative set of data about this anthropic activity of the urban area of the Messina Strait. The results of the project convinced the operator to introduce the changes on the whole fleet, contributing substantially to the reduction of emissions in the area.