Lack of funding
The uptake of autonomous operations in the ferry services sector will, in the first instance, require multiple tests during pilots to gain knowledge, gain experience, learn lessons and further improve systems. This “pilot phase” will require significant financial resources and private organisations may not be able to afford it without subsidies. Also, currently there are no (or very few) dedicated subsidy programmes for the uptake of autonomous ferries.
Passenger confidence
Gaining the confidence of passengers is of key importance for the uptake of autonomous sailing in the ferry services sector. Without confidence in autonomous sailing ferries, passengers will not make use of them. Gaining sufficient trust is a long-term process and requires careful communication and awareness campaigning. This campaign should make clear to passengers that autonomous ferries are at least as safe as, and even safer than, conventional ferries with a captain on board. A setback should not delay the further rollout and potential of autonomous sailing.
Trust and accidents
Winning trust is generally a long process. This also applies to gaining passenger confidence in autonomous ferries. However, a single accident with autonomous ferries, combined with widespread news coverage of the issue, could virtually destroy confidence in such systems. This must be taken into account and the necessary measures, for example in communication, must be taken to prevent the trust that has been built up from collapsing completely in the event of a possible accident.
Home market
The Netherlands has a relatively small internal ferry services market with a limited number of vessel operators and companies that supply them. This limited internal market may act as a barrier to the local development of autonomous systems for use in the Netherlands. This might put the Netherlands at a disadvantage relative to larger markets elsewhere in Europe, e.g. in Scandinavia.
Public tenders
Governments do not include autonomous sailing as a criterion in tenders issued for waterborne public transport. This is currently done, for example, for environmentally/climate-friendly ships; the use of such ships results in a higher score and thus a higher chance of winning the tender.
If autonomous sailing, like greening, were included as a criterion in tenders issued by governments, this could be an enormous boost for the uptake of autonomous sailing ferries.
Asset renewal in public transport
By the time governments and public transport bodies decide to include autonomous sailing as a criterion in the tender regulations, several tenders might already have been launched and ships built and deployed. Given the long lifespan of these ships and the contracts resulting from the tenders, it will be a long time before a new tender is issued and new vessels can be built and deployed. The application of autonomous sailing thus misses an opportunity that will only present itself years later.
Small ferry owners
The organisational structure of small ferry owners does not necessarily lend itself to the application of autonomous sailing. Owners with only one (or two) small ferries, who also steer the ferry themselves, will not gain much, if any, financial benefit from the application of autonomous sailing.
Dedicated shore control
The market size of the Dutch ferry services sector is too small to allow for dedicated ferry shore control centres. There are approximately 300 ferries in the Dutch market, of which nearly half are very small self-service ferries which are (economically) not very suitable for autonomous sailing. To achieve economic gain, development of Shore Control Centres (SCCs), where a single operator does the monitoring of several ships will be required. The SCCs then need sufficient scale to allow handover of ship monitoring responsibility to other operators when one operator deals with an emergency and needs to focus attention on one of the ships under his/her control.