The Future of Maritime Industry: How Climate Change and Other Environmental Challenges Will Impact on New Market Developments

Dear Colleagues,

The recent developments in shipping indicate how the future marine transport industry will push through interdisciplinary research in an attempt to cope with the market challenges that mix economic, engineering, and social issues.

Among the multitude of examples of such issues, climate change poses new challenges to port managers, who need to develop innovative infrastructures to cope with the changing environmental conditions (e.g., extreme weathers and streams, tides) that can also be linked to new organizational and business challenges. Similarly, from the ship point of view, novel propulsion systems and bunkering options—currently under development in order to meet the environmental targets—will need studies that both understand what the most reliable solutions are, and take into consideration the market organisation and the infrastructure endowment for acquiring the needed bunker. Other examples can be connected to the automation process—of both vessels and ports—as well as on innovative routing systems (e.g., arctic shipping) that pose differentiated challenges in terms of environmental and social impacts, as well as on the effective possibility to achieve the promised efficiency gains that only a holistic business and engineering assessment can help to evaluate.

Thus, the future of the marine transport research is necessarily linked to a variety of different themes that are often mixing economic (e.g., transport regulation, market organisation, and international trade), business (e.g., service organisation, specialised supply chains, and performance indicators), technical (e.g., environmental assessments, new fuels, automation, and information and communication technology), and regulatory (e.g., new IMO standards) aspects. While most of these issues have been studied separately, several aspects connected to the wider definition of sustainable strategies for both ports and shipping companies (i.e., linking economic, environmental, and social aspects) need to be developed further, promoting multidisciplinary research capable of tackling these future challenges.

As part of this need, the effect of specific external factors—among which is climate change—is still unclear, and will need to be addressed by proper analyses, allowing for the development of effective solutions capable of both mitigating environmental impacts (e.g., abatement technologies, ballast water treatment systems, and new fuels) and adapting the business to the changing environment (e.g., arctic shipping, extreme weather conditions, and tidal conditions).

The goal of the Special Issue is therefore to promote holistic and multidisciplinary research that evaluates the effects of future regulatory, technical, and environmental elements in the shipping and port industries.

As part of the above-mentioned challenges, some of the potential SI topics are connected, but not limited, to the following:

• Climate change and its effect on port competition
• Port authorities adaptation strategies to new environmental challenges
• Shipping companies’ adaptation strategies to new environmental challenges
• Environmental strategies and their effect in ship routing/service organisation (e.g., arctic shipping and new propulsion systems)
• Development of new fuels and their effect on the port services/bunkering station infrastructure
• Environment and connectivity
• Port congestions, ship routing optimisation, and their effect in terms of sustainable performance

A number of outstanding papers will be selected from the International Workshop on Climate Change Adaptation Planning for Ports, Transportation Infrastructure, and the Arctic ("CCAPPTIA") to be held in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, on 7-8 May 2020

Prof. Adolf K.Y. Ng
Dr. Alessio Tei
Prof. Ferrari Claudio
Guest Editors

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• Climate change
• Future maritime transport
• Innovations in shipping
• Sustainable maritime solutions
• Port adaptation strategies
• Maritime regulation
• Marine technology
• Sustainable transport