Autonomous ships have become a topic of interest for an increasing number of researchers over the last years. Most of the research that is being performed focuses on autonomous navigation. An important driver for this research is the belief that autonomous navigation will increase safety at sea. In order to evaluate the possible safety benefit of autonomous navigation, it is essential to have an understanding of the risk associated with navigation-related accidents. In this paper a monetary quantification of the risk associated with navigation-related accidents will be presented. It is the intention to provide order-of-magnitude figures for the annual risk for different ship types and sizes. Although it is acknowledged that the analysis comes with uncertainties, the results provide an overview contribution that different damage cases make to the overall risk per year, associated with navigation-related accidents. It is found that the annual risk can be expected to be between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion. Consequently, the maximum annual safety benefit of autonomous navigation is equal to this figure if autonomous navigation will be able to prevent all navigation-related accidents.

Keywords:
risk and uncertainty assessment, ship, accident, freight & logistics services, consequence, risk management, navigation-related accident, cargo ship, category, marine transportation
Subjects:
Safety, Risk Management and Decision-Making, Risk, uncertainty, and risk assessment
This content is only available via PDF.
Copyright 2022, The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.