Ulf Siwe updates readers on the MONALISA project.
Taking maritime transport into the digital era is the MONALISA 2.0 motto and almost 300 people from more than 20 countries joined the final conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, earlier this month to see the progress made.
The STM Validation Project kicked-off as well. It is the next e-navigation step, and a logical follow-up. In MONALISA 2.0, the Sea Traffic Management (STM) concept was defined. Now the concept will be tested, implemented and validated by 300 ships and 13 ports in two test beds, the Mediterranean and the Nordics, supported by five service centres on shore. Perhaps the most important task is to demonstrate the business value of the services to all stakeholders.
The ports will have a head start with two test sites in Gothenburg and Valencia started during the current project. The other 11 ports will get started 2016, sharing information of planned and actual states between all actors involved in the same port call. The ships will join the ports in March 2017 to optimise port calls even further, but also testing voyage specific service further improving optimisation and enhancing safety.
The long term vision of the STM concept also delivers concrete results on the way. The industry partners of MONALISA 2.0 have been instrumental in setting the newly adopted international standard for route exchange format, IEC 61174 ed4, and also in developing the European Maritime Simulator Network, the first ever in the civil maritime world.
MONALISA 2.0 aims at contributing to a continuous improvement and development of efficient, safe and environmentally friendly maritime transport in the European Union by implementation of a series of measures in accordance with the EU’s transport policies.
Keynote speaker Andreas Chrysostomou, Director of the Department of Merchant Shipping Cyprus, reflected “Personally I believe it is an innovative project, something that never happened before. It will change things. I hope that the outcome of the project will provide information to take e-navigation to a new level”.
Keynote Orlando Allard, President of RTI Latin America, ex-Panama Canal for over 30 years, said “I was a pilot in the Panama Canal and as a pilot, information is the most important thing. Situational awareness is perhaps the best tool that you can have. Determining where the other ships are in relationships to yours. Being able to know who is around you what is happening to all the other ships is perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments. In this respect I think the MONALISA 2.0 project has contributed enormously to safety in maritime transportation.”
Flavio Marangon, leading the Safer Ship part of the project shared some achievements:
- A prototype for safe life boat launching at heel over 20 degrees tested in the basin at Centro Jovellanos in Gijon
- A new layered Search and Rescue coordination tool, which will be replace the old system in Sweden early 2016.
- A RFID-based indoor positioning system assisting CO2-fire-fighting on-board by securing the evacuation of personnel first. The next version is ordered for 10 new builds
All the solutions have ROI in less than five years, much shorter than the average ship life span.
Pepe Díaz, leading the Operational Safety work took us on a journey where risk assessment and risk management guidelines evolved, ICT “gadgets” and new training courses were developed, and all of that was put to the test during a SAR exercise in and outside Port of Valencia in June 2015.
A panel talking about safety for large passenger ships reflected on how to build on the results and what other issues are the most urgent to address. One of the conclusions was that “soft” issues, like safety culture and knowledge sharing is important in future work.
