The last 5-10 years we have witnessed a significant upswing in the global interest in – and development of – technology and technological solutions for realising autonomous transport solutions at sea. The Norwegian maritime cluster being in the absolute forefront of development, with a main focus on systems and solutions enabling safe navigation. However, few concrete suggestions have so far been published on how to reduce or eliminate the need for onboard safety manning for passenger ferries. Meaning, to realise the full potential inherent in autonomy, there is an explicit need to develop new knowledge on how to design novel automated safety systems for small- and medium-sized passenger vessels (pax capacity 15-100).

AutoSafe aims to develop new design principles ensuring passenger safety as well as a method supporting the approval of passenger safety on uncrewed ships. The project results are also expected to be relevant for industry actors involved in cargo transport, including authorities, both for safety of ship and cargo. As such, AutoSafe will build the required knowledge and thereby contribute to close a critical gap towards the realisation of seabased autonomous passenger transport solutions.