Maritime Policy & Management

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Mapping competence requirements for future

shore control center operators

Rana Saha

To cite this article: Rana Saha (2021): Mapping competence requirements for future shore control
center operators, Maritime Policy & Management, DOI: 10.1080/03088839.2021.1930224

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2021.1930224

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MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2021.1930224

Mapping competence requirements for future shore control

center operators
Rana Saha
Department of Maritime Operations, University of South-Eastern Norway, Vestfold, Norway

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
With increasing interest and investment, the shipping industry is witnes­ Autonomous shipping; shore
sing solid development in autonomous operations of vessels and trans­ control center operator;
port networks in various configurations including the Shore Control competence; training; stcw
Center (SCC) concept where command, control, and/or monitoring of
ships will take place from the shore. However, detailed competence
requirements for the SCC Operator (SCCO) are yet to be established.
This study aims to map the competence requirements for SCCOs. Semi-
structured interviews were conducted with expert informants (n = 10)
from four different backgrounds, including academia, regulatory, technol­
ogy developers and other stakeholders, who were selected through
a purposive sampling technique. Results revealed three key competences
to develop: (i) System understanding, (ii) Communicational and technical
knowledge, and (iii) Maritime competence. Knowledge of regulations,
Navigational competence, and Basic engineering knowledge—will also
be required. The discussion also highlighted the scope of new regulations
and a manning plan for SCC. The author concludes that several modifica­
tions of the competence and training requirements will occur during the
early functioning period of SSC depending on the technological advance­
ment and operational experiences.

1. Introduction
The contemporary shipping industry and maritime operations currently utilize high levels of
automation (Lee and Sanquist 2018). The industry is experiencing increasing efforts and attention
in a transition towards autonomous shipping (Man et al. 2018; Relling et al. 2018). During the past
two decades, interest and investment in autonomous technologies have increased noticeably
through several projects and initiatives (Kooij et al. 2018). Major accelerators include the estimated
reduction of operational costs (Thieme and Utne 2017) and increased safety (Porathe et al. 2017).
However, with the increasing presence of autonomy, there are legal (Ringbom 2019) and opera­
tional (Komianos 2018) challenges which are yet to be solved.
A Shore Control Center (SCC) is a place from where an operator can monitor and remotely
control unmanned vessels (Porathe 2014). SCC operations will not eliminate the human from the
loop (Ahvenjärvi 2016). Therefore, it is necessary to train and develop human operators who will be
monitoring and controlling the vessels remotely (Rolls-Royce 2016). An operator who monitors
several Autonomous ships at the same time from a remote station and controls the vessels through
high-level command is defined as the Shore Control Center Operator (SCCO) (Burmeister et al.

CONTACT Rana Saha saha.usn@gmail.com University of South-Eastern Norway, Raveien 215, 3184 Borre, Vestfold,
Norway
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
2 R. SAHA

2014). The competence level for the SCCO is yet to be defined by rules and regulations (Ringbom
2019). Besides identifying the competence requirements, the industry must design training methods
as well.
This study aims to contribute to the ongoing efforts of developing the regulatory framework for
the remote monitoring of vessels. The regulations have to cover the competence requirements to
ensure safe and efficient operation of the SCC and its associated vessels. Based on the new training
requirements, maritime education and training (MET) institutions will be able to design, develop
and offer new model courses to fulfil the future requirements of the industry. Identifying the
importance of advanced learning tools and finding the bridge between current and future educa­
tion, is another objective of this study.

2. Background
2.1. Automation and Autonomous Technologies
Autonomy does not necessarily mean the complete removal of the human element, rather it
changes the role of the human in the loop depending on the type and level of automation
(Parasuraman, Sheridan, and Wickens 2000). Human interventions are often required, principally
in exceptional situations and during maintenance (Karvonen and Martio 2019). However, there is
a relation between the ‘manning level’ and the ‘degree’ or ‘level of autonomy’. The developments in
automation technologies have allowed for the trend of demanding onboard ships seen across the
industry for the past several decades (S. Mallam 2016). The higher levels of automation and
autonomy introduced, the more it is possible to move towards ‘unmanned’ operations (Ringbom
2019).
When technical advancement enables full or partial replacement of a function which was
previously carried out by the human operator, it is defined as ‘automation’ (Parasuraman,
Sheridan, and Wickens 2000). Several proposals on the level of automation (LOA) can be found
in the literature (Endsley 1999) where LOA depends on the degree of intervention by the machine
within a human loop or vice-versa. Table 1, describes a comparison of three (03) different scales of
LOA developed specifically for maritime applications including the four degrees of autonomy
defined by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
In each degree of autonomy, the role of human, their competence and training requirement
changes (S. C. Mallam, Nazir, and Sharma 2019). Therefore, attention must be given to the human
element of future vessel operations (Ahvenjärvi 2016). Using the IMO’s four degrees of automation
scale, at the second and third degree of autonomy where the vessel will be controlled remotely from
the shore, there will be the necessity of establishing a continuously manned SCC (Rødseth 2017)

Table 1. Different scales on ‘level of automation’ (IMO. (2018, 25.05.2018); Lloyd’s Register 2016; NFAS 2017).
Norwegian Forum for Autonomous
Lloyd’s Register 2016 Ships (NFAS 2017) IMO. (2018, 25.05.2018)
AL (Autonomy level) 0: manual Direct control
ship
AL1: On-board decision support Decision support 1. Ship with automated processes and
AL2: On & off-board decision Automated bridge decision support
support Periodically unmanned
AL3: ‘Active’ human on the loop Remote control 2. Remotely controlled ship with sea­
farers on board
AL4: human on the loop, Automatic 3. Remotely controlled ship without
operator/supervisory seafarers on board
AL5: fully autonomous, rarely Constrained autonomous
supervised
AL6: fully autonomous, Fully autonomous 4. Fully autonomous ship
unsupervised
 MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT 3

besides upgraded infrastructures in ports and waterways (Devaraju, Chen, and Negenborn 2018).
MUNIN (Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks) project outlined that
in an SCC an operator will be able to monitor more than one vessel where the number of the vessel
will depend on the reliability of the autonomous system and technology (Porathe 2014). Although
the SCC is already under development and in initial stages of testing (Massterly 2018), the
competence requirements for SCCOs are yet to be finalized.

2.2. Autonomous Shipping and SCC

2.2.1. Autonomous Ships
In line with the increasing interest of the international community in autonomous shipping, for
Regulatory Scoping Exercise (RSE), the term ‘Maritime Autonomous Surface ship’(MASS) has been
suggested as the generic name of these new types of ship (Rødseth, Nordahl, and Hoem 2018) and
defined as a ship which, to a varying degree, can operate independently of human interaction (IMO.
(2018,25.05.2018)). Figure 1 shows the classification of autonomous maritime systems and auton­
omous ship types adopted from (Rødseth and Nordahl 2017) and (IMO. (2018,25.05.2018))

2.2.2. Shore Control Center—SCC and SCCO

There are different proposed configurations and operational personnel proposed for SCCs and
SCCOs. Burmeister et al. (2014) suggest that SCC has to be manned by several human operators
with different responsibilities. The SCCOs should have the capacity of intervening in the remote
operation at any general or specific situation (Porathe, Prison, and Man 2014). It is important to
mention that SCC does not have to be physically on the shore, rather it also could be at a leading
manned vessel which will be leading a full convoy with several unmanned follower vessels (Rødseth
and Nordahl 2017). Again, depending on the technical advancement and system reliability, the SCC
could be in a single tier as well as in several tiers with a specific level of competence requirements for
each tier. However, these all are mainly from theoretical assessments and there is little empirical
data supporting these hypothetical configurations.

Figure 1. Classification of autonomous maritime systems and autonomous ship types.

4 R. SAHA

2.3. Competence mapping

There is often a lack of clarity between ‘competence’ and ‘competency’ (Teodorescu 2006), and
confusion arises during performance assessment (Moore, Cheng, and Dainty 2002). Therefore,
before mapping the competence model for SCCOs, it is worthy of clarifying the distinction between
‘competence’ and ‘competency’. Table 2 explains the differences between competence and compe­
tency further. This research focused on identifying the required ‘competence’ and not ‘the compe­
tency’. Within the field of human performance technology (HPT), competence models are very
different from competency models in their definition (Teodorescu 2006). With competence models,
the area of focus is the definition of measurable, specific and objective milestones describing what
people have to accomplish to consistently achieve or extend the goals for their role, team, division and
whole organization (Teodorescu 2006).

2.3.1. Current Competence Requirements

The STCW convention sets precise necessities for education, training and experience (sea service)
for personnel working on-board vessels. However, no proper competence requirements were
defined for the shore side personnel (STCW, 2011) until the ISM (International Safety
Management) code filled this gap. According to ISM code, they also need to know more traditional
aspects of vessel operation, such as navigational practices, maintenance systems and procedures,
machinery and equipment operation, manning requirements. Although the regulatory scope, as
well as other aspects of the SCC and autonomous shipping, is yet to be finalized (Rødseth and
Nordahl 2017), the existing requirements for conventional vessel shore-side personnel would be
highly relevant since it will be still related to operating a vessel at sea remotely.

3. Methodology
Principally, this study focused on the remote-control operation where a vessel is operated and
controlled from an SCC. Therefore, the scope of this study covers the second and third degrees of
autonomy, as defined by the IMO (IMO. (2018, 25.05.2018)) where the remote-control vessel is
manned and unmanned, respectively.
A literature review was performed to determine the initial interview topics and potential
informants’ categories. A qualitative semi-structured interview was employed to acquire a deeper
understanding from a set of experts in the field. A qualitative interview provides a rich, detailed
insight of the context (Hoepfl 1997), while the semi-structured approach provides the informants
with the freedom of expressing their views in their own terms (Barriball & While, 1994). Thematic
analysis of the qualitative data provided the final findings. Figure 2 explains the research design
further.

Table 2. The interface between Competence and Competency adopted from

(Sanghi 2016,10).
Competence Competency
Skill-based Behaviour-based
Attributes of the job Attributes of the person
Process centric Result-centric
Standard attained Manned of behaviour
What is measured How the standard is achieved

Figure 2. Research Design.

 MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT 5

3.1. Data collection

A purposive sampling method has been used for this study where the sample is selected based on the
characteristics of the population and the objective of the study (Lune and Berg 2016). For this study,
potential contacts were obtained through an online profile review and personal networking. Formal
invitation letters sent via emails (18) and LinkedIn messages (07) to entities involved in maritime
automation, autonomous shipping and SCCs. Since ‘Autonomous Shipping’ and SCC is a relatively
new area, people who have been involved in autonomous shipping for a longer period is low.
Therefore, the author was selective in determining the informants and categorized them into four
main domains:

(a) Technology developers from the Industry, who are engaged in designing and manufacturing
technology.
(b) Regulatory authorities, who issue the certificate of competency (COC) under STCW
ensuring safety at sea.
(c) Academician, who develop the learning methods and will be training future operators.
(d) Other stakeholders, i.e. the seafarers (who are at the core of shipping), unions, and the
investors (ship owners, insurance company etc.)- who have a common agenda of ensuring
the safety and business simultaneously.

Table 3 reveals the informant’s demographic information. There are a total of 10 informants from
four categories as mentioned above. They have an average of 14.4 years of experiences within their
current affiliations and almost 3 years with autonomous shipping. Six of them also had a seafaring
experience. Informant 2 has dual affiliations.
The interview contents were primarily identified through an in-depth analysis of the existing
literature. The semi-structured interview guide was developed by the author and validated by three
subject experts in two stages (once when the initial topics were developed, and then before finalizing
the interview guide). A copy of the interview guide is attached as Appendix 01. This research was
registered with the Norwegian Center for Research Data (Project no. 260,685).

3.2. Data Analysis

Thematic analysis is used to analyse the qualitative interview data obtained through this study. This
is an analysis method for capturing patterns (‘themes’) across qualitative datasets (Braun et al. 2018).
Thematic Analysis is an ‘umbrella term’ (Braun et al. 2018), and there are several different
approaches established by various researchers. Among them, one of the most popular methods is
the six (06) phase thematic analysis which has been used for this study (Braun et al. 2018).
Developing the interview guide, defining, conducting the interview, transcribing the data and
reviewing the data- were performed by the same author, enabling detailed familiarization with the
data code. Two (02) software were used to supplement the analysis process. 1. Temi—a transcribing
software with manual reviewing. The conversations were audio-recorded and transcribed using this

Table 3. Informants background.

Informants No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Avg.
Affiliations Academician √ √ √ 14.4
Regulatory Body √ √ √ √
Industry √ √ √
Other √
Engagement with current affiliation (Years) 7 35 12 17 11 15 6 13 26 2
Experience (Years) Familiarization with AS** 3 1 1.5 2 3 7 5 4 2 2 3.05
Involvement with AS** 2 1 1.5 2 3 7 5 4 2 2 2.95
Seafaring 0 7 0 10 8 0 18 30 0 15 8.80
6 R. SAHA

software. And, later manually checked and rectified. 2. Nvivo—qualitative data analysis software
used for data classification, primary coding and theme generation. Code was generated in two ways.
Primarily, themes were developed following the interview guide (theory-driven), and the code
search started across each dataset. Later, during the search, several themes emerged to code other
data which cannot be accumulated under those initial themes. Eventually, new themes were added,
and existing themes were modified while necessary (data driven). Codes generated under each
theme was saved automatically using NVivo. The aim was to generate maximum code which
represented the dataset. While reviewing, themes which contain code that has less than 30%
representation of the sample (N = 10) or having less than five codings were excluded. Remaining
themes went under review and adopted, merged or redefined logically. In the findings section, data
coded under the themes are presented in detail. Additional findings which may not directly be
related to the RQ but still have significance to the study are reported in the discussion. The detailed
list of initial code (named as Node by the analysis tool, i.e. NVivo) generations is shown in
Appendix 02.

4. Findings
Key findings from the analysis are presented in this section. Several themes emerged in the first
stage of analysis (coding). Those themes were revised and interlinked at the second stage and
presented as the final findings (themes). Each theme denotes key findings from the informants and
explained in detail. Direct citations from the informant’s comments are presented in italics.
The analysis revealed three key competences to develop to perform the role of future SCCO
which are: (i) System understanding, (ii) Communication and technical knowledge, and (iii)
Maritime competence. Knowledge of regulations, navigational competence, and basic engineering
knowledge was also found to be necessary (see Figure 3). Further, the analysis suggests—a. extended
use of simulator on training and education followed by a trainee period can prepare the future
SCCO effectively b. experienced OOW (Officer of the Watch) was preferred as a future SCCO, for
the initial phases.

Figure 3. SCCO’s Competence map (NVivo).

 MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT 7

4.1. Key Competence to Develop

It was discussed that the SCCO would not require competence at a high level as current captains or
chief engineers. However, they will need to understand the basics of how the ship is operated in
a sea environment. Informants discussed that SCCOs should have some underpinning knowledge
about autonomous technologies and remote operation, and if they’re going to intervene, then they
will need comprehensive competence, as well as experience. However, it is not necessarily realistic
to have a lot of operators with this vast education. The analysis revealed the following three
competences to be developed for the new role.

4.1.1. System Understanding

Based on the discussion, when necessary, the SCCO will have to verify the sensor readings. They
need to have some level of understanding—basic knowledge about all the systems on-board,
understanding control systems, be able to respond to alarms. SCCO must know enough to handle
an emergency when things are not working anymore.
‘When human and machine are working together, the best output of the machine will be when
human understand how the machine is working.’ (Informant 8)

4.1.2. Communicational & Technical Knowledge

According to informants, the SCCO should have the ability to interact efficiently. So, if something
happens, then they will have to be able to handle the situation. They will need to have technical
insight in knowing what is happening with the ship and its systems from the SCC, but also
management tasks like problem-solving, including diagnosing systems and operations, where the
problem is located and whom they are going to call to solve any issues that arise.
‘They need to know how the whole system works, how the different companies communicate with
each other, what they can do, what they cannot do . . . ’ (Informant 5)
The informants further discussed that the SCCO must have a higher competence in computers
and communications systems. They must understand a basic level of knowledge of aspects of the
technical systems on board, including navigation, communication and cargo handling. They should
have good knowledge of control center systems, both the decision-making systems and the com­
munication systems.

4.1.3. Maritime Competence

As our informants discussed, the SCCO have to interact with other vessels as well. Particularly, it
will be crucial when autonomous ships are interacting with conventional manned vessels. To
navigate in this environment SCCOs need to know the rules of the road (i.e. COLREG), radar
operations or ECDIS functions. If SCCOs need to take manual control of the ship, then they need to
have core maritime competences as well.
‘ . . . they need to focus on aptitude, which is the ability, not necessarily formal competencies. It is
actually an understanding of how is to interact within both manned-manned and manned-machine
interface.’ (Informant 3)

4.2. Existing Competences

As the analysis revealed, the STCW requirements for current seafarers will be relevant for auton­
omous shipping and SCCOs. However, it has gaps. Some competences have to be developed further,
while some competencies will be irrelevant depending on the level of automation and operational
configuration of a particular vessel. Again, initially, we will need those for at least a time until we
have the correct data in place.
Overall, the informants suggested that knowledge of existing regulations, moderate understand­
ing of navigation, and a basic understanding of engineering would be required for future SCCO’s.
8 R. SAHA

4.2.1. Knowledge of Existing Regulation

As stated by the informants, the SCCO should understand the rules and regulations for navigating,
the rules for operating and safe working practices. The rules and regulations within the shore
control centers should be emphasized. The operator should be clear about their jurisdictions and/or
limitations.
‘ . . . they don’t need to know complete rules set for the role of the navigator because if they really go
in and do a remote take over the operation, then they need to know those relevant rules basically.’
(Informant 9)
The informants added that the ISM code would have increased value and the SCCO need to have
the education so that if they are a part of the risk management system, they need to be able to
mitigate it.

4.2.2. Navigational Competence

Our informants suggested that SCCO will need very comprehensive navigational competence.
‘ . . . it’s the practical realization that the navigational competences would be different, but, the
basic knowledge underlying that will be more or less the same, as I see it today at least.’ (Informant 6)
As the informants argued, for instance, tying a rope and doing it practically on-board ship is not
relevant. However, knowledge of seamanship of how a rope is used for berthing, tension, anchoring
and ship drifting with winds, currents and other environmental conditions will continue to be
relevant.

4.2.3. Basic Engineering Knowledge

As the analysis revealed, the SCCO should have marine engineering knowledge also, but not in
a high degree. Informants discussed that SCCOs should understand the parameters of a particular
propulsion system and how it operates. Furthermore, a basic understanding of the fire-fighting
system will also be required.
‘It will be more like the pilot of an airplane that you will recognize alarms and understand what
significance they have. They will have training in the alarm system.’ (Informant 1)

4.3. Background Competence

Two differing perspectives were put forth by our informants regarding the type of competence and
background knowledge and education SCCOs should acquire:
It should be the people with a navigation understanding because then they know how a ship should
behave and they can control it manually.’ (Informant 2)
The other perspective put forth is that:
‘They should be an IT engineer because if something breaks down, it will be the technology and they
will know how to re-establish the system.’ (Informant 9)
However, the overall analysis found that in the initial introduction and operation of SCCs,
certified sailors will likely take over shore side monitoring tasks. This will create a precedent
so that the operator will be the first line of support, while they will have supervisors managing
the larger ecosystem. The first line operator will likely be a person who has some nautical
knowledge or maritime background education and who know the technology. They may not
be highly experienced navigator like a captain, but they should have enough navigational
understanding like an OOW.

4.4. Training and Education

As the informants described, a more blended training methodology will be required in comparison
to today. Training will focus more on how to use autonomous solutions, its weaknesses and possible
failures. But first, the procedures need to be developed since it will be different than today.
 MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT 9

‘ . . . technology is becoming more and more advanced and you can’t rely on a seafarer education to
give people deep knowledge of every component and when the components are getting more and more
advanced.’ (Informant 1)
The informants further stipulated that the SCCO should learn and familiarize with the whole
vessel, and with the technology that enables it. Not just the vessel nor the SCC. They will need to
have a holistic understanding of how they work together. SCCOs have to know the emergency
planning for both SCC and the vessel. Those aspects will also have to be trained besides, given the
theoretical background. We need to keep it simple, but also at the same time, it needs to be safe. It
is better to add a little bit extra in the beginning, and then it’s easier just to take away some of it
later.

4.4.1. Extended Simulator Training

As per the informant’s discussion, simulator training can be very useful as it is more live training so
that the trainee will be trained on the systems to learn about the hull of the ship, perform different
operations on the full synthetic environment. And, we can simply put scenarios & treat the
accidents. Consequently, we can compensate for the lack of sea experience through simulation
and simulator experience. SCCOs will require special simulator training to learn about the hull of
the ship, its operations at sea and perform different scenarios to gain ‘front-end’ experience.
‘Simulator training will be more important ever. There is tremendous potential with simulation
because you can train on scenarios which you very seldom or you don’t dare to test in real life.’
(Informant 10)
The informants also suggested a simulator-based assessment to test the aptitude of the SCCO.
Multitasking abilities in a case of operational emergencies need to be assessed through defined
model courses.

4.4.2. Trainee period at SCC

As our informants reasoned, since the autonomous solution enables things to be moved to the
shore, the SCCO need the hands-on training so that they intuitively understand what’s going on
at SCC.
‘ . . . we’ll have to go into the shore control center to gain operational experiences and be there for
a certain amount of time passing through several tests.’ (Informant 7)

5. Discussion
5.1. Competence mapping for SCCO
Eighty percent of the informants discussed 3 themes in details- (i) technical knowledge, (ii) system
understanding, and (iii) core maritime competence. Discussions focused on the need for having
a wider breadth of knowledge rather than having deeper knowledge, such as programming or
critical maintenance skills. For example, to run a car, we don’t need to be highly technical and
knowledgeable about how a car works.
Requirements from existing seafarer competences are dependent upon the level and reliability of
the technology deployed. Once the technology proves its reliability, it should not be necessary to
have many conventional seafarer competences. We will likely require many of the existing con­
ventional competences until we have (i) detailed oceanographic data such as underwater topogra­
phy, depths, currents along the jetties, etc. to arrange the system algorithm and (ii) operational data
from both SCC and autonomous ships to make reliable predictions. If the SCCO is mostly
communicating remotely through a computer with a computer on-board then there is a high
possibility that some of the current STCW requirements will be inappropriate or irrelevant. For
instance, knowing how to operate a sextant has not been relevant for navigators of contemporary
shipping for many years. The same could become true for on-board fire fighting skills and
10 R. SAHA

navigation skills. This will depend upon the technology, redundancy, and reliability of the system,
and will need to evolve as technologies evolve.
For many years to come, there will likely be a great mixture of required competences. People
with engineering and nautical backgrounds with some extended training and familiarization with
a system could be the immediate choice as SCCO. It will be unrealistic to require that everyone
working in SCC should have been at sea. However, one option may be that SCCOs should spend
a certain period on that type of vessel before operating them from SCCs.

5.2. Training and education

The industry should appeal to the MET institutions to build a program to add competence sets that
is unique for an SCCO. There are several pieces of research that suggest simulation as one of the
most effective tools for MET (Hanzu-Pazara et al. 2008; Muirhead 2004). Simulators can add
considerable value to classroom theory. All of our informants mentioned that simulators are
a useful tool for future training of the SCCO. However, there will be a necessity for improved
simulators to cover the advanced modules to facilities the SCCOs training which expected to be
different from the training module of conventional seafarers.

5.3. STCW or New Code?

The industry either needs a new code to handle autonomous operations or development of
autonomous and unmanned operations within the existing regulations. There are discussions on
both directions- finding a framework by bringing necessary modification within STCW (Sharma
et al. 2019) or aiming for a new code for functioning the unmanned operations (Bergström et al.
2018). Forty percent of our informants directly discussed on this issue and summing their inputs, the
best solutions for the Autonomous shipping will be to develop its own code including competence
elements for different levels most likely what we have for the High-Speed Craft (HSC) code.

5.4. Manning at SCC

There are several alternatives for establishing the efficient, at least as safe as manned ships
(Burmeister et al. 2014), and cost-effective manning for SCC. When the aviation industry eliminates
a cockpit team, they had to navigate through the second pilot, an engineer, and they’ve got a fully
automated bridge, the cockpit pilot is only monitoring. It’s the same for a conventional ship where we
have an officer who will do the watch keeping. An OOW is a person that at any time is responsible for
monitoring the ship and intervening if needed (Rødseth and Nordahl 2017). If something happens to

Figure 4. Manning proposal for the SCC.

 MARITIME POLICY & MANAGEMENT 11

them, generally they must call the superiors. Figure 4 shows an alternative proposal for SCC manning
the author propose based on the findings from this data collection and the literature.
Front line operators will have simpler tasks like today’s OOW on the conventional vessels.
Eighty percent of our informants propose individuals with seafaring experience. Of course, they
need to undergo some trial type of training and then the level checks to define the minimum
requirements that must be in place to fulfil this position. They will be reacting to alarms and then
knowing what to do if an alarm occurs. At the same time, they need to know to ignore the weaknesses
in the systems. On support or backup role, personnel require to have a better understanding of the
systems, if the system is failing, they must be able to get it back again. They need to have the navigation
type of background as well and blended that into being a process operator for a navigation system.

5.5. Limitations and areas for future research

The research design of this study has several limitations. Firstly, the purposive (non-probability)
sampling doesn’t represent a wide range of populations but rather was focused on gathering specific
expert opinions. Secondly, with qualitative research, there is always a chance of introducing
unintentional biases based on that author’s experiences, expectations or educational and profes­
sional background. A parallel study by different researchers or additional surveys reviewing the
acceptability of the findings among the potential SCCO’s could validate the results further. Finally,
there was no functioning SCC during the time of this study. Thus, there is a lack of real-world data
and knowledge from SCC operations and SCCOs.
There are several exposed grounds from this study that can be covered by the future researchers
and can bring further benefit for the shipping industry in general, and particularly to the ongoing
progression of autonomous shipping. Firstly, future research should investigate the possible busi­
ness model(s) for autonomous operation. Although there is already some study focusing on this
issue, still we need to define the business model(s) specifically, to manage this new segment
sustainably. The aim should be making the operation cost-effective and at least ‘as safe as of
now’. On the other hand, there will be a necessity of either modification within existing regulations
or a new code to adopt the new operation. Future research can aim to define it. Further, the
researchers shall investigate the feasibility of simulator-based assessment methods. The simulator is
already proved as an effective training tool and can be an effective tool for assessment. Particularly
for the future, while more and more digitalization is expected to take place in the field of MET.

6. Conclusion
With the present flow of technological advancement and an increasing presence of digitalization,
autonomous operations of vessels are no longer a fuzzy concept of future maritime operations. At
this point, the SCC is the best solution that is currently available and acceptable. Continuous efforts
and collaboration across maritime stakeholders, including national and international regulatory
bodies, technology developers, end-users and the MET institutions will accelerate the process.
Considering the outcomes from the current study, the author concludes that the SCCO should
possess a combination of maritime and technological competence to control the unmanned vessels
with comprehensive knowledge of the remote vessel operational and monitoring system. Detailed
requirements to attain these qualifications should be structured in a special regulatory arrangement.
Before confirming this arrangement, the intended requirements should undergo several phases of
trial, review and modification. Therefore, the initial competence requirements and training mod­
ules will most probably have several modifications based upon the performance evaluation from
initial testing and deployment. Data, which will be collected from this initial operation, will also
have an impact on the development of competence requirements. So, the future development and
reliability of technical features of autonomous systems, and thus the competence requirements of
12 R. SAHA

the human operator will require further development and revision.

Acknowledgments
This study formed part of the thesis studies for the degree of Master of Science (MSc) at the University of South-
Eastern Norway (USN), which has been further developed and revised after the completion of the thesis. The author
would like to thanks Steven Mallam and Amit Sharma from USN for their support and feedback at the initial stage of
this study.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Rana Saha http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3591-1157

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