German Government Approves Remote Controlled Shipping Trial

Shipping company HGK Shipping has been granted approval by the German government to conduct the country’s first remote-controlled inland waterway vessel trial over a period of six months. 

The German General Directorate for Waterways and Shipping (GDWS) granted approval for the trial following an initial pilot that saw the push barge combination consisting of Niedersachsen 2 and Hannover complete test operations on a limited section of inland waterway in May. 

Commenting on the new trial, the German Federal Minister, Dr Patrick Schneider, said: 

“Inland waterway shipping is facing enormous challenges. The shortage of skilled workers, which will particularly become even more critical in the near future, must not be allowed to become a serious obstacle for this hidden champion among the different modes of transport.

After all, it’s a fact that inland waterways are the only means of transport that we have in Germany with free capacity. Pilot projects such as this remote-controlled push barge combination can therefore become a game changer. The approval procedures have been completed. It’s now necessary to get the technology out of the laboratory onto the water and put it into action”.

The trial will see the push barges being operated on the German canal network between the communities in Scharnebeck and Salzgitter. Whilst the barges will be remotely controlled, they will still have a full crew on board in case of emergencies. 

Should this stage of the trial prove successful, it is expected that the retrofitted vessels would then move to a phase where they are operated by a reduced crew. The ultimate aim is to ‘use personnel in a more flexible manner and enable skippers to spend more time on dry land’. 

The remote control technology used in the retrofitted barges has been developed by SEAFAR - a Belgium shipping technology company that is ‘accelerating innovation to reach the full potential of shipping’. 

Commenting on the use of the technology, Steffen Bauer, the CEO of HGK, said: 

“We’re putting our faith in increasingly digitalising inland waterway shipping together with our technology partner, SEAFAR, which is operating a so-called Remote Operations Center in Duisberg, in addition to modernising our fleet. This is an effective lever to increase the attractiveness of the profession when seeking to attract qualified workers. 

Based on the careful preparation and implementation of the individual approval stages, we’re hoping that we can quickly move to the next stage after this test phase and operate vessels with a reduced crew”.

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