Autonomous vessels: regulations must improve to support safe roll-out

摘要

Autonomous vessels will undoubtedly play a role in future shipping strategies, and as the technology develops, so the potential for such vessels increases. Current projects and studies underway include applications that range from container ships to workboats, but the missing piece of the puzzle - the elephant in the room - is the absence of a well-defined regulatory scheme to govern their use. Last year, IMO's Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) laid the groundwork for such regulations by approving a framework and methodology for a regulatory scoping exercise on Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) at its 100th session (MSC100).