Platforms for Smart Fairways - Enhancing Services for Autonomous Maritime Traffic and Other Emerging Uses of Territorial Sea

Abstract

<p>Digitalization has brough about new services to assist navigation, and first autonomous vessels are already in use. This poses also challenges to the fairways, i.e. routes on sea that are designed to secure maritime traffic with physical navigation aids. How should fairway be augmented in future? And, most importantly, how can we make it happen? We use Finnish territorial waters as an example to illustrate how ongoing changes of seafaring are taken into account in design of autonomous maritime infrastructure by experts. We use multi-staged Delphi-method to derive the elements of importance for safeguarding autonomous maritime traffic. We suggest starting to improve services at critical points of present fairways. Authorities should ensure the integrity of data and services of merchant traffic first, and thereafter establish jointly an open platform where recreational user can design, try, implement, and test services to their specific needs. This reasoning stems from theoretical underpinnings of communities of interest in self-regulating their environment. The platform could also provide a viable economic solution for speeding up new valuable mobile service designs.<br></p>