Air quality issues related to the operation of port sites in urban areas have become a concern for all public, economic and associative actors and for the citizens living along the shoreline. Eco-driving is an action that already enables everyone to reduce the polluting emissions associated with travel by private car by adapting their daily driving habits.
In the port of Marseille, the pilot station simulator allows pilots to perfect their maneuvers on all types of vessels and in all types of conditions. It performs a large number of calculations on a digital model, whose behavior it reproduces in real time. A lot of data can be extracted apart from fuel consumption values. The Friend Ship Solution developed by Implexe is the missing link between simulator practice and eco-piloting. It is based on the time series produced by the simulator, which retraces the dynamic behavior of the ship. The aim is to enable pilots to exercise their maneuvering intelligence by integrating into their optimizations the “negative externalities” of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions, both produced by combustion in engines. To achieve this, it was necessary to model specific consumption during the maneuvering phase.
The simulations carried out using the Friend Ship Solution highlight possible gains in consumption during the maneuvering phase. With a 200-meter ferry, fuel savings of more than 10% are immediately calculated in metric tons. The same applies to the reduction of polluting emissions, given the large number of calls operated by these vessels. The solution visually displays the calculations with a monitoring of the vessel’s course in the port area where the maneuver is replayed and numerical comparisons of consumption and emissions are associated to alternative maneuvers.