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Estonian shipping company Tallink Grupp and the TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy started a scientific collaboration with the aim of developing smart ship solutions.

Under the EUR 100,000 cooperation agreement, the parties would be working on various innovative solutions for Tallink’s vessels over the next two years.

The focus of the collaboration will be on developing the so-called Smart Car Deck solutions, which would be aligned with the Smart Port solutions already in use today and would result in innovative technologies that would make the ships’ car decks and operations on the car decks more efficient, Tallink explained.

The expected results are the increased efficiency of the operations of the ships’ hold, a decreased need for workforce for the loading and unloading of ships, enabling the workforce to be used for other specialist duties, and a reduction in the waiting time for embarking and disembarking the ships.

“The ports around the Baltic Sea have already developed or are currently developing several Smart Port solutions…which has enabled the ports to make the processes involving vehicles automated and thus more efficient,” Paavo Nõgene, CEO of Tallink Grupp, said.

“Our ships are important partners and customers of the Baltic Sea ports and therefore it is only logical that alongside the smart ports we must also create smart ships,” he added.