Technology will not end shipping cycles

Shipping cycles are here to stay, even with the adoption of ever more analytical technology, a survey carried on this site has overwhelmingly shown.

MarPoll, the quarterly online survey carried by Splash and Maritime CEO magazine, features nine topical questions ranging from emissions to transparency, big boxships, technology, and shipbroking.

With just over a month of voting to go, 89% of respondents so far disagree with the viewpoint that the shift in technology will bring an end to shipping cycles.

The topic has raised the heckles of a number of readers. “Greed invariably conquers logic,” one respondent commented.

“This might only come about when humans are completely removed from the system. As long as humans make decisions, the industry will be subject to emotions and therefore cycles,” another reader suggested.

At the TradeWinds Shipowners Forum, held at Posidonia in Athens last month, Christopher Wiernicki, chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), claimed: “Shipping cycles are a thing of the past.”

Henriette Brent-Petersen, managing director of DVB Bank’s shipping and offshore research department, echoed Wiernicki’s thoughts, saying that the industry can no longer use history to predict how shipping sub-sectors will emerge from market downturns.

“We are in the beginning of a new bout of technological innovation,” she summed up.

Voting takes a couple of minutes and there is no registration. Results will be carried in the next issue of Maritime CEO magazine due out in time for SMM, the world’s biggest shipping show, which takes place in Hamburg in early September.

To vote, click here.