The integration of advanced technologies in areas such as safety, navigation, maintenance, security, supply chain management, and environmental impact can enable shipping maritime companies to enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, mitigate risks, and drive innovation in a highly competitive industry. The paper introduces the application of Digital Twins in the shipping and maritime sector, highlights its contributions to safety and fleet management with live ship monitoring on all operations and crew, and extends such applications with the integration of Virtual Reality and Artificial intelligence for immediate decision making, risk avoidance and corrective actions. Its concept is based on and follows the developments and improvements of SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea), the ISM (International Safety Management) and ISPS Codes (International Ship and Port Facility Security), and STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping). Furthermore, this work analyzes user requirements from different actors in the shipping and maritime industry (officers, ship-agents, ship owners and ship managers, insurance companies, charterers, etc.) and creates a high-level operations framework to guide the design and implementation of successful maritime digital twin projects. Lastly, it highlights the relationship between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the digital twin adaptation strategy in the maritime and shipping sector. The paper concludes with the impact and contributions of such intelligent and interactive Digital Twins technologies in the maritime and shipping sectors from operational and environmental sustainability perspectives.
The research, which began a year ago, was led by Dr. Evangelos Markopoulos, a Visiting Professor specializing in Knowledge Management and Artificial Intelligence for Social and Sustainable Innovation at the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Turku University (Finland). However, this work would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of reputable academics, researchers, and industry experts who played a significant role in data collection, verification, and analysis. The paper’s co-authors are: Dr. Panagiotis Markopoulos (Associate Professor, Staffordshire University, London Digital Institute), Dr. Akash Nandi (Researcher, Harvard University, Department of Economics), John Faraclas (CEO, All About Shipping, London), Dr. Chris Leontopoulos (Vice President, American Bureau of Shipping, Athens), Dr. Stavros Meidanis (Managing Director, Capital-Executive Ship Management Corp, Athens), Dimitris Monioudis (CEO, Rethymnis & Kulukundis Limited, London), and Grigoris Filahtos (graduate from the National Technical University of Athens, School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, Athens).
This work was presented at the track ‘Human-Centered Metaverse and Digital Environments’ of the AHFE 2024. 15th Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference series, organized by the International Ergonomics Association, from July 24 to 27, 2024 at Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France.   It has also been published after a blind peer review process as a book chapter in AHFE 2024 Open Access Edition on Accessibility, Assistive Technology and Digital Environments. You can download the paper here: https://openaccess.cms-conferences.org/publications/book/978-1-958651-97-1/article/978-1-958651-97-1_11
The paper received a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), a unique and never-changing string assigned to online (journal) articles, books, and other works and can be cited as:
Markopoulos, E., Markopoulos, P., Nandi, A., Faraclas, J., Leontopoulos, C., Meidanis, S., Monioudis, D., Filahtos, G. (2024). The Impact of Digital Twins Technology in Maritime Fleet and Safety Management. In: Matteo Zallio (eds) Accessibility, Assistive Technology and Digital Environments. AHFE (2024) International Conference. AHFE Open Access, vol 121. pages 109–119. AHFE International, USA. http://doi.org/10.54941/ahfe1004619
The paper is already listed in various Academic libraries such as Semantic Scholar and others. UCL Discovery (UCL Library) already lists this work, and soon it will be available in many scientific and university libraries across the world. (The Impact of Digital Twins Technology in Maritime Fleet and Safety Management – UCL Discovery or https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195661/ ).
The authors have made the paper open access to ensure it is freely available to the global maritime community. Remarkably, within less than a month, brief summaries of the paper have already appeared on various maritime websites and have been covered by different organizations and journalists, with slight modifications in the title and the content. This widespread sharing reflects the paper’s relevance and impact within the maritime sector
