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1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of developing an autonomous merchant ship
(carrying passengers or goods by the sea with a
limited human intervention) has been pursued by
shipping companies and other industry actors for the
past few years. As of April 2020, there are some
prototypes being tested, or in preparation (Felski &
Zwolak, 2020). However, it remains unknown how,
or when such ships will become fully operational
(Kooij et al., 2018) and whether their operations will
be feasible (Wróbel et al., 2017). Nonetheless, it can be
safely assumed that they will at some point be
introduced to the maritime industry, and will
eventually become a significant mode of transporting
goods and passengers (Bitar, 2017).
The sustainability of such vessels comes with the
need of redefining the role of seafarers and other
maritime personnel (Cicek et al., 2019; Lokuketagoda
et al., 2018). The issue of preparing the maritime
workforce for the upcoming shift is already being
discussed by numerous authors (Emad et al., 2020;
Fan et al., 2020; Lutzhoft et al., 2019; Sharma et al.,
2019). However, to our best knowledge, cadets’
attitudes or points of view have not been investigated
to date. Meanwhile, future seafarers are continuously
being educated and trained in many Maritime
Education and Training (MET) institutions around
the world. Moreover, introducing autonomous ships
and technological progress in the marine industry are
indicated as some of the reasons for the continuous
improvement of seafarers' skills (Yuen et al., 2018).
Thus, in order to secure the sustainability of the
maritime training process, cadets’ perspectives must
be scrutinized and addressed.
Some research concerning the mariners’ attitude
towards Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships
(MASS), has been conducted in recent years (Nautilus
Federation, 2018; World Maritime University, 2019).
However, those studies were focused on the opinion
Awareness and Attitude of Maritime Students Towards
the Introduction of Autonomous Merchant Ships –
Preliminary Results
J. Nasur & K. Bogusławski
Gdynia Maritime University, Gdynia, Poland
ABSTRACT: Autonomous merchant shipping has become a topic of discussions and studies as the available
technology enables it to become a possible alternative to conventional ships manned with seafarers. The present
study reviews the results of a survey conducted worldwide amongst the students of maritime universities. The
students were asked about their understanding of autonomous merchant ships and an attitude towards them.
The study finds that the vast majority of interviewees claims to have an average or below average knowledge of
the topic, and perceive automation as a factor increasing safety at sea, while threatening seafaring jobs. The
results suggest that the topic of autonomous shipping should be more touched upon in curriculums of maritime
universities, as the students appear to have a limited understanding of what can potentially become a future of
their prospective occupation.
http://www.transnav.eu
the International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 14
Number 4
December 2020
DOI: 10.12716/1001.14.04.10
860
of experienced seafarers. It is also important to
investigate what attitude do the students of maritime-
related topics have. They intend to advance their
maritime careers and will inevitably be affected by
any disruptive changes to it. Therefore, the aim of this
study is to bridge this gap and identify the awareness
and attitude of maritime students towards
introducing the autonomous merchant ships. The
findings of this study can be found relevant and
interesting by scholars and lecturers at METs,
regarding the topic coverage in curricula.
Additionally, maritime administration, as well as
seafarers’ unions and other public institutions may be
interested in seeing the perceived job insecurity
caused by automation.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
methods utilized in the study are presented and
described. Section 3 introduces results of the survey
along with their analysis. In Section 4, the main
findings are discussed, while Section 5 concludes the
paper.
2 METHODS
In the study, conducted at the turn of February and
March 2020, we asked students of maritime-related
studies to answer a total of 18 questions, in order to
check their views concerning MASS. The form was
sent to the teachers and officials of maritime
universities along with a request to share it amongst
their students.
The survey was conducted through an online
survey platform. Before starting the survey, the
questionnaire was sent to three maritime students in
order to validate the survey form. Since we received
positive feedback, no further changes were made to
the questionnaire. The answers of the testers are thus
included in the results.
In total, we received 338 individual responses.
Among these, we rejected eight, because they did not
meet the requirements of participation.
The questions 1-6 concerned the demographic
background of the respondents. The question 7
concerned their opinion about their overall
familiarity with the topic of MASS. The survey would
terminate upon responding: The topic is unknown to
me. Consequently, the questions 8-18 concerned
respondents’ attitude and awareness of the topic, as
well as its exploration during maritime studies.
3 RESULTS
3.1 Demographic data
Out of 330 respondents, 73.6% were males, 25.2%
were females, remaining 1.2% were non-binary or
preferred not to state their gender. A vast majority
(91.2%) was less than twenty-two years old.
Table 1 depicts demographic breakdown of the
surveyed students by the countries of origin,
affiliated universities and majors of studies.
The highest number of respondents affiliated with
Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) in
Philippines (39.7%), however, when combining the
answers, the majority of respondents (60.3%) studied
in European METs. Most of the respondents (83.3%)
have been studying maritime-oriented majors for no
more than three years.
Table 1. Demographic breakdown of the respondents
_______________________________________________
Country of origin Number of respondents
_______________________________________________
Philippines 131
Russia 77
Poland 54
Belgium 24
Romania 18
France 6
Other 19
_______________________________________________
Affiliated university Number of respondents
_______________________________________________
Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific 131
Admiral Makarov State University of 84
Maritime and Inland Shipping
Gdynia Maritime University 46
Antwerp Maritime Academy 31
Constanta Maritime University 19
Maritime University of Szczecin 10
World Maritime University 7
Estonian Maritime Academy 1
_______________________________________________
Studies major Number of respondents
_______________________________________________
Navigation 161
Transport and logistics 90
Marine engineering 72
Administration 4
Electrical engineering 1
IT 1
_______________________________________________
3.2 Results of the survey
When asked about their familiarity with the topic of
MASS, 88% of the respondents rated their knowledge
as no higher than average (Fig.1.). The respondents
were then asked how they feel about increasing ship
automation (Fig.2.) and where did they know the
term autonomous merchant ship from, in the form of
a multiple choice question (Fig.3.). The most
selected sources were: maritime-oriented websites
(54%), lectures (47%) and discussions with other
students (39%). The vast majority of the students
(70%) rated the coverage of the MASS topic within
their major curricula as average or below average
(Fig.4.).
861
Figure 1 Respondents’ knowledge about MASS
Figure 2. Cumulative results of the respondents’ agreement
with statements about MASS
Figure 3. Sources of entrants’ knowledge about MASS
Figure 4. Coverage of the MASS topic in respondents’
METs
As can be noticed from Figure 2:
− Nearly half of the respondents (49%) agree that
autonomous ships are a threat to seafaring jobs;
− Almost every fourth student (23%) thinks that ship
automation may not increase safety at sea;
− Roughly one in three respondents (35%) neither
disagrees nor agrees that seafarers should resist
the implementation of MASS;
− 63% of the students perceive new technologies
increasing automation as beneficial to the shipping
industry.
4 DISCUSSION
The analysis of collected data reveals that the
knowledge of the MASS topic amongst maritime
students is average, at most (see Fig.1). Meanwhile,
more than half of the students predict that
autonomous ships will relatively soon become a
majority in merchant shipping, which means that
they expect them to appear during their seafaring
career span. Such prognosis suggests that students
should achieve a better understanding of prospective
changes to their occupational domain. While the
coverage of the topic at the respondents’ METs varies,
only one in ten students is fully satisfied with its
scope (Fig.4). Reportedly, the most common sources
862
of information pertaining to MASS were maritime-
oriented websites (Fig.3). This may suggest that the
topic is rarely touched upon in general news, as well
as in curricula. Finally, it indicates that students
continue to be interested in issues related to their
future occupation and seek additional information
outside the classrooms. On the other hand, the very
purpose of professional training is to get familiar
with the intended working domain, while gaining
necessary skills.
Autonomous ships are considered to be a threat to
seafaring jobs by only a half of the respondents,
which is far less than amongst professionals
((Nautilus Federation, 2018). Not knowing the
respondents’ actual rationale behind such statements,
we may only speculate that these may be the
following:
− a generally positive attitude of the Z generation
towards technology (Turner, 2015) - where
entrants see technologies as tools to achieve their
goals rather than phenomena that can make their
workplaces obsolete;
− a belief that seafaring jobs are in fact uneasy to
fully automate due to its complexity and cognitive
workload required particularly on operational and
management levels (Frey & Osborne, 2017) - a
view that is partially supported by ;
− a potential lack of a developed occupational ethos
and commitment to the work position.
Interestingly, students perceive ship automation
as a potential way of increasing safety at sea, while
the majority of experienced seafarers state it may
pose a threat to safety (Nautilus Federation, 2018).
Such difference in entrants’ and professional
seafarers’ attitudes may be caused by the lack of sea-
going experience of the former. Noteworthy,
scientific data appears to be ambiguous in this respect
(Wróbel et al., 2017).
An interesting speculation can be drawn from
entrants’ responses to the question whether seafarers
should resist the implementation of autonomous
merchant ships, either by themselves or through
official unions and other public institutions. As
presented in Figure 2, only every third respondent
agreed with this statement (significantly less than
those seeing automation as a threat to job positions -
49%). This may indicate that:
− entrants do not have faith in the ITF’s
(International Transport Workers' Federation)
ability to defend seafarers’ positions or
− entrants believe they will easily find work in other
fields even if their original positions are replaced
by automation.
It is also worth noting, that despite 63% of
respondents stating that ship automation is beneficial
to the shipping industry in general, only 49% see it as
a threat to seafaring jobs. Such difference may be
caused by some students thinking that the
automatization will be limited to ships with
automated processes and decision support, with
seafarers present on board to operate and control
shipboard systems and functions (Degree of
Automation 1, as classified by International Maritime
Organization (Chae et al., 2020; Wróbel et al., 2020)).
Through this scheme, automation would aid seafarers
in their daily tasks making their jobs easier but not
threatening their existence. This might indicate a high
level of self-confidence among prospective seafarers
who think that their contribution to the global
shipping industry is non-replaceable (Kim, 2017).
Sadly or not, restricting the drive towards autonomy
to only this aspect may prove impossible.
The uncertainties and limitations of the study can
result from:
− relatively small sample size;
− limited geographical diversity of surveyed METs;
− potential misinterpretation of questions by
respondents.
For an improved understanding of entrants’
viewpoints on MASS, the following should be
studied deeper: a perceived coverage of MASS topic
in particular METs, the correlation between topic
coverage in METs on respondents attitude towards
MASS, respondents’ prospects on working ashore, i.e.
in Shore Control Centers.
What is also noteworthy, the study was carried
out during the early stages of the global outbreak of
SARS-CoV-2. The expected global economic recession
(Ozili & Arun, 2020) may cause a significant change
of the perceived job security within the shipping
industry. Its impact on the maritime job market as
well as on the process of maritime autonomization
are difficult to predict as of early April 2020.
5 CONCLUSION
The main objective of this research was to study the
awareness and attitude of maritime students on
autonomous merchant ships. The most important
findings of the study are: the coverage of MASS topic
in respondents’ METs is mostly below a satisfying
level, their knowledge is mainly average, at most.
Statistically, the respondents perceive automation as
beneficial to safety at sea, but not as a threat to
seafaring jobs. By producing these conclusions, we
have achieved the main goal of our study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors, second year students of Navigation at GMU,
are grateful to all students who participated in the study as
well as their teachers who forwarded the survey form to
them. The assistance of Krzysztof Wróbel and Mateusz Gil
of Gdynia Maritime University was kindly appreciated.
The authors would also like to thank Prof. Adam Weintrit
for inspiration and helping in survey distribution.
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