Shipping Industry Using AI to Stop Deadly Fires
Global shipping is looking to artificial intelligence to reduce the number of fatal fires at sea, which reached a decade high last year (Financial Times, subscription).
What’s going on: “A new AI-powered tool will scan millions of bookings in real time, using pattern recognition and algorithms to identify risks. These will be flagged to carriers who can carry out physical inspections if necessary.”
- The increase in incidence of deadly fires—a top concern among carriers today—is due primarily to shipping agents’ failure to declare the hazardous cargo, either inadvertently or deliberately, to avoid extra fees.
- In response, the World Shipping Council is starting a program “to detect offenders,” it announced Monday at the beginning of London International Shipping Week.
- “[C]arriers accounting for 70% of global container freight capacity had opted to join,” and the maritime insurance industry has welcomed the plan.
Where it’s happened: Earlier this month, the containership Wan Hai 503 was towed into a United Arab Emirates port—two months after catching fire off the coast of India in a blaze that killed four crew members. It’s believed that dangerous cargo on the ship may have been mislabeled.
- A 2019 fire on the container ship Yantian Express has been blamed on “coconut charcoal” accidentally being declared as “coconut pellets.”
Why it’s happening: “[M]isdeclaration had been a problem for many years, but the costs of fires [is] increasing because container vessels ha[ve] grown so much,” Rahul Khanna, a former cargo ship captain who is now global head of marine risk consulting at Allianz Commercial, told FT.