Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, transportation has leapfrogged with the support of scientific and technological innovation. Transportation infrastructure construction technology has been among the world's forefront, with a number of world-class projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and Beijing Daxing International Airport completed and in operation. Some transportation equipment leads the world, and major engineering equipment such as high-precision deep-water gravel leveling vessels, extra-large trailing suction hopper dredgers, and carrying equipment such as the Fuxing CEMU and the C919 large passenger aircraft represent China’s manufacturing capability. A new generation of information technology has been widely used in the transportation, with the rapid development of intelligent highways, intelligent shipping, intelligent high-speed railways, intelligent civil aviation, intelligent storage and distribution, etc. The scientific and technological innovation capacity of transportation has been further strengthened, the science and technology talented troop has been growing, the layer of structure has been optimized, and the institutional mechanism and system of transportation science and technology innovation has been improved. All of these have laid a good foundation for the construction of a strong transportation country accelerated by scientific and technological innovation.
With the continuous development of China's intelligent transportation applications, the intelligent transportation construction will continue to maintain rapid growth. How will intelligent transportation develop better in the future, and what kind of intelligent transportation will be in various fields of transportation? The special feature Going the Distance - China's Development of Intelligent Transportation of CCTV China Traffic Radio’s Reception Room will show the development of smart transportation and the achievements of technological innovation in various transportation industries.
In this program, we invite Zhang Baochen, executive vice president of China Institute of Navigation (CIN), to share with us the development of intelligent shipping.
What is shipping？
Shipping is actually a tool of transportation that uses ships as a means to realize the spatial displacement of people or objects. So, when it comes to transportation, no matter it is a car, a plane or a train, it is actually used to realize the spatial displacement of people or objects. More specially, shipping is dependent on port and ship, which is as a tool of transportation to carry cargos or passengers from one port to another and this process can be called shipping. The traditional shipping is manned, but the intelligent shipping is controlled by artificial intelligence, which replaces manual operation through modern information networks and other systems. But intelligent shipping itself is not aimed at intelligence itself, but at achieving simple and efficient transportation, or improving safety, or enabling shipping workers to improve their working environment and so on.
Logistics cost of shipping
Shipping is the most economical of all modes of transport, what is the reason for this? That’s because shipping features large-tonnage ships, and it has the advantage of saving land, which is a very important resource. Unlike other means of transport, shipping can only use ocean, river and lakes. So far, shipping is responsible for 85% to 90% of foreign trade. You can see that if it is not economical, it will not take such a huge share. Shipping is more suitable for long-distance transport, because it is relatively slower. For long-distance freight, shipping is the best choice, because its logistics cost is the lowest.
The development of China’s intelligent shipping
On November 5, 2021, the Ministry of Transport issued the Notice on the Organization of Pilot Application of Automatic Driving and Intelligent Shipping, deciding to organize the pilot application of automatic driving and intelligent shipping, and announcing the specific pilot task areas. Intelligent shipping is composed of five elements, including smart ships, smart ports, smart navigation support, smart supervision and smart services. In China, maritime transport is responsible for more than 50% of domestic trade transport and 90% of international trade transport, and many commodities enter the public life through it. With the development of 5G, big data and artificial intelligence technology, the shipping industry has advanced with the times and initiated the age of intelligent shipping. Fully automated container terminals, unmanned cargo ships, ship-to-shore integration... These innovation breakthroughs are increasing the automation level of shipping, a traditional industry, and will also change our production and life style for a long time.
The level and position of China’s intelligent shipping development in the world
It is about the origin of intelligent shipping, which is not originated from China, but the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway and other countries. These countries focus on explorations such as intelligent ships or unmanned ships. It should be said that at that time there is no concept of intelligent shipping, which emerged in about 2017. This question is not only about ships, but also the whole system, ranging from manned ships to unmanned ships, which is not within the scope of law, ports, navigation support or supervision. So, intelligent shipping should be a big system and it is we Chinese people who are the first to propose the concept of intelligent shipping from the perspective of a country and even the world. So far, when it comes to the whole intelligent shipping, it is the Chinese who describe it the most comprehensively, and foreign countries are only talking the perspective of autonomous ships or autonomous shipping. There are many foreign institutions that are studying our intelligent shipping development guidance, so we can safely say that it is reaching consensus worldwide.
What changes will intelligent shipping bring to the shipping industry?
So far, the development of the whole intelligent industry is still in the early stage from the perspective of home and abroad. For example, when it comes to intelligent ships, it should be said that Europe, Asia and Russia are developing fast. As for Europe, Norway is taking the lead. Japan and South Korea is also developing relatively fast in this area. Of course, China and Russian are also major participants. These countries that I have just mentioned are the ones who are developing relatively fast in terms of autonomous ships, and basically belong to the first rank.
The development of China’s intelligent ports
Zhang Baochen, executive vice president of CIN, said that in addition to the origin of intelligent ship, intelligent port is not originated in China, but in Europe, with the Netherlands and Singapore at the forefront of the world. But in the process of development, many countries have taken a detour, because they tried to apply intelligent technology to the whole process of port construction, going too fast but counterproductive. China has achieved great development in the past few years, which mainly reflects in the construction of container terminals. From Xiamen Yuanhai fully automated container terminal, Qingdao fully automated container terminal, to Shanghai Yangshan port, it can be said that China is in the forefront of the world in terms of development speed of fully automated container terminal technology. In addition to the fully automated container terminals mentioned above, our country has also made a lot of other explorations in the development of intelligent ports. For example, Huanghua port has made relatively great achievements in bulk cargo’s handling operations in port. The second direction is that we are making our way in port intelligence, and there are also good results in the control of port production processes, safe production operations and the use of intelligent technology for control. But to what extent is the port intelligence appropriate? Perhaps port is not as efficient as it should be after full automation, what does this mean? It is not said that this is not the right direction, but it may be that our technology has not yet reached such an ideal level. We cannot pursue intelligence for the sake of intelligence, or we should give up eating for fear of choking.
What the trend the Dutch port of Rotterdam set at that time?
It should be said that on the one hand, it is the intelligence of European ports, which has undergone a relatively long process, featuring early start but slow promotion. The basic reason is that the privation of enterprises must be led by economic benefits, which stress input and output. At that time, a Belgium port’s container volume was more than 500,000 TEUs a year, but the staff in the port was only about 50 people. While at that time, if a port with such a storage capacity in our country, it would probably have thousands of workers. So, in this way, you can see the input-output ratio. From this, what we should know is that port development should not only be dependent on human beings, it should apply advanced technology. Now, just like the Qingdao port you just talked about, it is actually no longer positioned as a fully automated container terminal, it has already become intelligent in many aspects.
Zhang Baochen said, automation and intelligence are not at the same level. Automation refers to a system or several systems that can automatically operate, but also needs a lot of staff present. Automation is the basis of intelligence, while intelligence can achieve more work attributes, almost no human. But even our current automated terminals, machine loading and unloading cargo speed has basically caught up with the manual speed, which means that China's current level of port intelligence has surpassed that of Europe. Moreover, China also has the core technology of fully automated terminal operating system.
Previously all our systems are dependent on foreign imports, but now we have already had a number of container terminal operation management systems, and even have access to the port security management system.
The whole process has reached a very high level, including how to automatically detect the driverless cars operating in the port.
Is the smart port completely unmanned and automated?
That is not yet, because the fully automated container terminal itself is not unmanned, and it just need less people compared with non-fully automated ones. The container has a variety of models in the world, each of which has a lock, needing to be locked and unlocked in the whole operation process in the port. The number of lock standards is more than one hundred, and there is none device that can match all these locks. This poses a problem. In this operation, it is necessary that the work is done by man, but is it possible to replace them in the future? There is also the possibility that the global container standards must be unified, just as our mobile phones and other electronic products. The mobile phones we bought in the past have different brands and their own unique charging cables, but now we basically use two or three ones. The use of intelligence is not aimed at a complete replacement of manpower, but improving the working conditions for terminal workers, or reducing labor intensity, including efficiency, which is the goal of the intelligent port. For example, the driver works high above the ground to operate the container bridge hoist or crane, and their health and well-being are obviously affected by this work pressure. Now we want to solve this problem through automation and artificial intelligence to allow him to stop doing this on the site, but in the office, this is our real objective. But now there is some incorrect recognition and understanding, or misleading, that the intelligent port is unmanned, which is not quite appropriate. In addition to non-standard operations, such as bulk cargos, I am afraid that this kind of operation to achieve unmanned or intelligent may be a long way off. It is not completely unachievable, but need high and unaffordable cost. So it should be said that in the end, it must be the value it brings that matters. The port is like this, in fact, ships and other aspects are also the same.
Since 1993, when the world's first automated container terminal was built at the ECT terminal in the Dutch port of Rotterdam, major ports around the world have been actively promoting the use of this advanced technology. In the last three decades, there have been 48 automated ports worldwide. The first automated terminal in China was completed in Xiamen in March 2016. Subsequently, several cities such as Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin started to build or renovate newly automated container terminals and put them into operation. Over the past six years, China's builders have drawn on advanced overseas experience and made innovations, and have now fully mastered the key technologies in the entire chain of automated terminal design and construction, equipment manufacturing, system integration and operation management, achieving a qualitative leap forward. In the next program, we will also continue to invite Mr Zhang Baochen, executive vice president, to share with us about the development status and future prospect of intelligent ships and intelligent navigation support in China's intelligent shipping.