The World Shipping Council (WSC) plans to use artificial intelligence to bolster cargo safety.
The organization announced Monday that it had launched a new initiative, which it calls the Cargo Safety Program, with the goal of preemptively stopping dangerous goods from making it onto ships. The WSC said it will use AI to screen and inspect cargo before it’s loaded on the ship, with the intention of pinpointing misdeclared or undeclared shipments that would be of high risk to ship operators, companies’ cargo and the vessels themselves.
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Joe Kramek, president and CEO of the WSC, said he expects the measures to decrease the number of ship fires that occur.
“We have seen too many tragic incidents where misdeclared cargo has led to catastrophic fires, including the loss of life,” Kramek said in a statement. “The WSC Cargo Safety Program strengthens the industry’s safety net by combining shared screening technology, common inspection standards, and real-world feedback to reduce risk.”
To date, the WSC said, a variety of ocean freight carriers that account for more than 70 percent of global twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) capacity have already joined the initiative. That includes Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE), Maersk, CMA CGM and others.
The screening tool, which leverages technology built by the National Cargo Bureau (NCB), “scans millions of bookings in real time using keyword searches, trade pattern recognition and AI-driven algorithms to identify potential risks,” the WSC said. If the system finds risks or anomalies, it passes that feedback to a carrier; the carrier can then perform manual inspections of the cargo as needed.
The WSC joins other third-party logistics players—albeit primarily on land—in leveraging AI for safety. Autonomous trucks typically leverage AI and machine learning-based systems to determine the safest route for the vehicles to take; paired with sensors and computer vision, these systems can also alert the driverless vehicle to on-road hazards, including tumultuous weather conditions.
Additionally, some logistics players have started to leverage robotics in their facilities; increasingly, physical AI helps to ensure those robots don’t collide with or otherwise endanger the human workers they spend time alongside. That’s done both through real-world learnings and through digital twin simulations, which can train robots on millions of inputs far faster than developers could do if they had to manually simulate every situation in the real world. Physical AI is becoming increasingly important because of the rise of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Because AMRs move freely around warehouses, factories and other facilities, they have to be able to stop abruptly,
AI-based monitoring, meant to flag hazards before injury, is also at play in many warehouses; companies like Voxel, which grabbed a Series B round in June, are able to interlink AI systems with existing security cameras and sensors to monitor employee safety. The company’s heat-mapping system uses inputs from the camera to determine high-risk zones in a facility, giving managers real-time suggestions on how to clear up hazards. The Port of Virginia uses such technology to make operations safer.
The WSC did not clarify in its announcement whether it plans to use the new AI capabilities to stave off safety issues beyond fires; the trade group recently put out a report that said nearly 11.4 percent of inspected cargo shipments have deficiencies. That could mean they have undeclared or misdeclared goods in them; incorrect or mangled packaging; structural issues or wrong documents.
At the time, the WSC said any of those issues have the propensity to cause major safety problems, including ship fires. Just days ago, right after the WSC issued its safety warning, more than 60 containers toppled from a cargo ship at the Port of Long Beach; the ship carried cargo for retailers like Costco, Target, Walmart and smaller shops. The cause of the incident has yet to be reported by officials.
If leveraged appropriately, AI scanning technology like the kind the WSC has introduced could help mitigate incidents beyond fires. The organization said the initiative is an extension of its interest in improving safety outcomes for cargo carriers and noted that the Cargo Safety Program will “continue to evolve, with regular updates to its technology and standards to address new and emerging risks.
Kramek said that, by doing so, he hopes the WSC can help move the needle on safety outcomes but noted that carriers and companies also bear responsibility for protecting workers, ships and cargo.
“By working together and using the best available tools, we can identify risks early, act quickly and prevent accidents before they happen,” Kramek said in a statement. “The Cargo Safety Program is a powerful new layer of protection, but it does not replace the fundamental obligation shippers have to declare dangerous goods accurately. That is the starting point for safety, and it is required under international law.”
