Intelligent Shipping and Smart Maritime

Dear Colleagues,

The shipping and maritime industry is undergoing a paradigm shift driven by the deep convergence of digitalisation, decarbonisation, automation, and intelligent technologies. This Special Issue aims to address the critical challenges and emerging opportunities at the nexus of intelligent shipping and smart maritime systems. It seeks to provide a premier interdisciplinary platform for disseminating cutting-edge research and transformative practices that advance the digital, intelligent, and green transition of the maritime sector. By fostering scholarly dialogue on the integration of artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and other next-generation information technologies across the entire maritime value chain, this Special Issue will explore solutions to key industry pain points, including high operational costs, mounting regulatory pressures for decarbonisation, and persistent maritime safety and security risks. This Special Issue aspires to consolidate top-tier global research, stimulate technological innovation and standardisation in domains such as autonomous vessels, smart ports, intelligent waterways, and smart maritime supervision, and guide strategic industry transformation. Ultimately, it aims to provide both academic foundations and practical guidance for the sustainable development of intelligent shipping and smart maritime systems, positioning itself as a key reference for shaping future research agendas and industry directions worldwide.

This Special Issue invites original research articles, comprehensive review papers, and case studies that address theoretical, technological, engineering, and policy dimensions of intelligent shipping and smart maritime systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Intelligent vessel technologies: autonomous navigation systems, human–machine collaborative control, intelligent engine room systems, advanced perception and collision avoidance, autonomous vessel sea trials and verification, and the development of green and intelligent vessels;
• Smart maritime supervision and safety: intelligent vessel traffic services (VTSs) decision-support systems, anomaly detection for vessel behaviour, collision risk prediction, maritime big data analytics, and integrated air–sea–subsea collaborative surveillance technologies;
• Smart ports and intelligent waterways: automated terminal operations and optimisation, smart quay cranes and automated guided vehicles (AGVs), electronic nautical chart technologies, intelligent waterway monitoring and maintenance, and core hardware innovations such as port-deployed AI chips;
• Digitalisation and intelligent technologies in shipping: maritime large language models and AI agents for shipping decision-making, AIS data mining and vessel trajectory prediction, blockchain applications in maritime supply chains and electronic bills of lading;
• Green and intelligent shipping: low-carbon route planning, vessel energy efficiency optimisation, applications of alternative-fuel vessels, and AI-enabled pathways for maritime carbon emission reduction;
• Maritime safety and emergency management: intelligent inspection robotics, smart technologies for far-sea search and rescue, vessel fault prediction and health management (PHM), and AI-based risk assessment and prevention;
• Cross-cutting and emerging technologies: deep integration of AI with maritime operations, IoT-enabled infrastructure coordination, multi-agent collaboration in shipping systems, and digital twin technologies;
• Standards, policies, and regulatory frameworks: international rule-making for intelligent shipping, national standard development, lessons from demonstration zones and pilot routes, and industrial policy for industry transformation.

Dr. Zhi Yuan
Dr. Ke Zhang
Prof. Dr. Yi Liu
Prof. Dr. Zhao Liu
Dr. Mingyang Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Transportation is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.