TDEN - Technology integration in maritime and ports operations

Permacrisis has led to the emergence of the characteristics that make the seafaring profession attractive. In addition to high financial rewards and career prospects, it offers resilience and diversity of employment. These features have always distinguished the seafaring profession, and institutionalized employment options enhance its flexibility.
This research aims to investigate the prospects for professional development within the maritime labour market in Greece. Through the conceptual framework, the factors that strengthen or weaken the mobility of senior seafaring personnel are determined and analyzed, and the career mobility patterns, i.e., employment-related, intrasectoral, intersectoral, and rejoin-related mobility, are identified and interpreted. These data render the research original and unique, given that labour mobility constitutes an analysis tool that has not yet attracted research interest at the national or international level.
HR management practices that comply with high-performance work systems based on career mobility will contribute to attracting and retaining the senior maritime workforce. These practices improve job satisfaction, strengthening the bond with seafaring labour.

The port industry is considered a late adopter of Artificial Intelligence (AI). That is due to various factors such as the nature of port operations, the internal port environment characteristics and the numerous players operating the port area. Despite that, recently port industry has taken several actions towards AI solutions adaptation. AI solutions are considered as the logical step for ports after their automation as it can provide solutions and increase the efficiency of port processes. That can lead to reduced costs, better optimization of port operations, decreased emissions, while overall increase port users' satisfaction. On the other hand, AI comes with a price. Significant investments are needed to adopt AI solutions in port operations, which might prevent medium- and small-size ports from quickly adapting into the AI era. Finally, there are significant challenges for ports related to the potential scarcity of qualified personnel and the need for port workforce transformation. The paper tries to shed light on the issues affecting the potential of AI in the port industry by examining the perceptions regarding the expectations, challenges, and pros and cons of AI in ports. Towards this, the paper proceeds with field research using a structured questionnaire to port IT experts. The research results will provide valuable insights regarding the low penetration of AI in ports in the port industry that can be used to form relevant strategies and policies.

It is well known that the maritime industry has been a late mover in the application of digital solutions compared to other industries. A relatively slow shift in costs of transmitting data over large oceans contributed together with a widespread cost-driven "commodity approach". Still, empirical developments indicate a catching up in the maritime industry. New satellite solutions have rapidly decreased the costs of transmitting data over long distances and recent studies have shown increased capacities in digitalized solutions multiplying the application opportunities on the oceans and ashore. In this article, we analyze the implications of a possible transformation from the classic sea-shore connectivity related to single-dimensional flows of information towards an AI-generated integration related to multi-dimensional, cognitive processes of knowledge. It follows that AI-generated sea-shore integration contains multiple, interlinked dimensions. Concurrently this study combines an ESG-E perspective on the integration processes between sea and shore as (1) the environmental implications of AI-generated processes in terms of potential for emission reductions, (2) the social implications of the integrated vessel in terms of fast, reliable and cheap internet connections following AI applications, (3) the governance dimension regarding the changing regulatory compliance processes, (4) the possible economic efficiency gains of AI-generated sea-shore processes.

A "double maneuver" (Ødegaard and Betti 2024) appears to characterize the current transcendence of the land-sea binary, considering the orientation towards the sea for "blue growth" extraction on the one hand and the simultaneous maneuver towards land on the other, e.g. through the "onshoring" of functions through digital technologies and automation. Such "onshoring" is facilitated by investments in and developments of digital technologies in shipping and beyond and entails the partial movement to land of work functions, surveillance, and decision-making. The paper explores, from anthropological perspectives, the forms of relocation that digitalized "onshoring" entails: First, as a (partial) displacement of work functions and labor from ship to control rooms on-land and second, through relocations of digital representations from their originating physical objects, qualities, or processes at sea, to other locations. How do these relocations affect work relations and labor categories in the maritime/offshore sectors? What are the implications of remote operations for the use of human senses and ways of relating to technologies and the ocean? The presentation discusses how remote technologies facilitate a new "intimacy without proximity" (Metcalf 2008) in operations at sea and argues that we need to understand how they change the social and phenomenological nature of maritime/offshore work. 

Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to transform port operations by enhancing efficiency, safety, and risk management. AR enables real-time visualization of information and processes through interactive digital overlays, improving coordination and decision-making. By integrating AR with IoT and AI, operators could gain real-time insights into vessel and vehicles movements, cargo positioning, and equipment performance, reducing operational bottlenecks. A key advantage of AR is its ability to enhance workplace safety by mitigating risks and providing tools for cross-check processes and collaboratively solve issues. AR-based training simulations prepare dockworkers and crane operators for hazardous scenarios, reducing accidents and human errors. The current research focus highlights AR's effectiveness in logistics – using smart glasses –when linked to investments in smart port technologies such as automated operations. While major ports, including Rotterdam and Singapore, have begun integrating AR for terminal management, demonstrating its potential in high-performance logistics environments, most of the investment are currently focusing on container terminals while applications to truck operations and loading/unloading of Ro-Ros and ferries is relatively understudied as well as the related acceptability issues from dockworkers and terminal customers. Current paper tries to fill-in this gap by investigating a case study based in the port of Genoa.

Accurate forecasting of freight rates has become a critical necessity for the shipping industry, particularly as the sector seeks to innovate and adapt to the increasing regulatory pressures to reduce CO2 emissions, such as those imposed by the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) 2020 measures and the 2015 Paris Agreement. This study evaluates the forecasting performance of traditional methods, including ARIMA, VAR and VECM models, in comparison to modern semi-parametric techniques such as Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression (FAVAR) and Factor-Augmented Error Correction Models (FECM). By integrating control variables, including geopolitical risk indices, macroeconomic indicators, financial and market sentiment indicators, the analysis ensures a comprehensive and robust evaluation of model performance. Additionally, shrinkage techniques, including LASSO, Ridge Regression, and Elastic Net, are applied to enhance predictive accuracy by mitigating overfitting and improving variable selection in high-dimensional settings. The results will indicate whether modern techniques outperform traditional approaches, providing more accurate predictions of freight rate dynamics in the dry bulk market. These findings contribute to the development of innovative business models by providing industry stakeholders with predictive tools that support strategic planning and risk mitigation enabling a more sustainable and resilient freight market in a volatile and regulated global environment.