The impact of shipping 4.0 on controlling shipping accidents: A systematic literature review

Maritime shipping, with a significant role in global trade, confronts various accidents leading to loss of lives, properties, and the environment. Shipping 4.0 technologies are scaling up to address this problem by employing real-time data-driven technologies, including cyber-physical systems, advanced tracking and tracing, intelligent systems, and big data analytics. Despite growing attention, there is a general lack of clarity on the level and direction of progress in this field. Accordingly, this study aims to identify critical shipping accident risks, analyze the role of relevant shipping 4.0 technologies in controlling these risks, and consolidate the findings into a conceptual guiding framework directing future developments. Accordingly, a systematic review is performed that reveals how shipping 4.0 approaches address critical accident risks and the gaps that still exist. Overall, we found that the collision is the most frequent accident referred to, while the most frequent technology to control the accidents is the Automatic Identification System. In contrast, we see an evident lack of cloud computing, internet-of-things, and big data analytics, which play crucial roles in current industry 4.0 developments.