NAVTOR – new ways to optimise voyages and port calls

E-navigation and vessel performance company NAVTOR is developing new ways for voyage and port calls optimisation. Bjørn Åge Hjøllo, chief sustainability officer, explained

E-navigation and vessel performance company NAVTOR is leading a three years funded Research project named, “Green AI for Sustainable Shipping” (GASS), to develop new ways to use AI to advise how voyages can  improve both safety and efficiency.

Bjørn Åge Hjøllo, chief sustainability officer and co-founder of NAVTOR explained more, speaking at People Tech Maritime Bergen event in November.

The AI uses what NAVTOR calls “genetic algorithms,” which assess a number of different options based on a calculation of their “fitness,” similar to how genetic evolution allows the strongest combination of genes to survive.

Also involved in the project are ship owners Grieg Star and SinOceanic Shipping, technology company ScanReach, and organisations Maritime CleanTech, R&D partner Simula Research Laboratory, and Sustainable Energy. The project has financial support of 70m NOK (6.5m Euro) from the Norwegian Research Council, Innovation Norway, and SIVA, through the Green Platform Initiative.

The AI-enhanced technology analyses current and historical data to identify ways to improve energy efficiency of voyages, with better routing and speed. As part of this, it develops a digital twin of the vessel main engine.

The model can identify in more detail how much adverse impact bad weather may have on vessel performance. It is common for navigators to take a route which avoids bad weather if they can. But “quite often, you have too big a safety margin, because you don't know how the crew, vessel and cargo will react to bad weather and waves,” Mr Hjøllo said.

With improved algorithms, uncertainty in the calculations will be reduced, including for fuel consumption and arrival time, he said.

Input data to the algorithms includes sensor data, fuel data, noon reports, digital logbook data, ocean meteorology data, and vessel statistics and operational parameters.

GASS will be developing tools to provide real-time notification to crew  about overconsumption, showing what the consumers onboard are doing.

A digital twin of the engine of a Grieg Star vessel was developed and trained on pre-2024 data. It can now predict fuel consumption of the vessel given the sailing plan and weather, within 3 per cent, he said.

As of November 2025, the weather routing optimisation has been developed but will be “further validated and sped up. “We hope to have some services by Q4 2026.”

Port call optimisation

NAVTOR is also involved in the EU funded project DYNAPORT (Dynamic Navigation and Port Call Optimisation in Real Time) project, as one of 19 partners. The project supports automated data exchange between vessel and berth, including Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA), or about the time the berth will be available.

It is still typical today for vessels to have to wait days or even weeks to access their berth, after arrival in the vicinity. They may have been able to save fuel by going slower.

One of the reasons for this is that managing port calls in most ports in 2026 is more or less completely manual and non-standardised, Mr Hjøllo said. So, we are a long way from having digital integration between vessels and ports. Many people have dreamt of a digital scheduling solution. Mr Hjøllo has been involved in collaborative projects to try to improve this for 10 years.

So far, DYNAPORT has managed port call optimisation for port calls on the ‘green corridor’ between Rotterdam and Singapore. There are plans to extend it to 6 larger European ports.

The first live “digital port call” took place in July 2025, with container ship NCL Vestland sailing from Bergen to Rotterdam.

The data exchange between ship and port is based on IMO-FAL standard documents. FAL is IMO’s Facilitation Committee. The reports contain large numbers of data elements.

There is an “administration report” where the vessel makes the initial declaration of its arrival, and an “operational report” where the ETA can be continuously updated.

With DYNAPORT, digital reports can be shared automatically from software onboard vessels to software in ports, via APIs. The port’s system can send an automated confirmation saying it has received the data.

The vessels have planning software NavStation which generates the reports automatically, taking data from the passage planning software.

In 2026, NAVTOR will add port call optimisation tools to its weather routing software, so the software can find the most effective route and speed considering both weather and expected berth availability time at the destination.

NAVTOR

NAVTOR was launched in 2012. Its original business model was providing systems to make it easier to update electronic charts onboard, so companies would only need to pay for the charts they used.

The company now provides a broader digital ecosystem, with tools for gathering, reporting, and working more kinds of data. This includes navigation software, tools for reporting vessel emissions and performance, digital logbooks, monitoring, and notification tools. It has been providing weather routing optimisation for 2 years.

The company now counts a third of all vessels as customers in some form.

This means that if shipping creates 3 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emission, the “NAVTOR fleet” makes 1 per cent. By 2050, shipping is expected to make 17 per cent of all emissions, as other industry sectors cut emissions faster. This would mean NAVTOR’s customers making 5 per cent of total GHG.

If NAVTOR can help its customers cut emissions 20 per cent, that would be 1 per cent of global GHG emissions, plus associated cost savings, Mr Hjøllo said.

Greenhouse gas and politics

CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 25 per cent since the 1980s.

When Mr Hjøllo graduated in meteorology in the early 1990s in the University of Bergen, there was uncertainty about the impact of CO2 on climate. “Today, there is no uncertainty in it,” he said.

“Through media channels, we have learned that the current U.S. president dismisses climate change as a ‘con job,’ which directly contradicts established scientific evidence.”

“NOAA, which helped us identify the ozone hole from the 90sbeing a must trusted scientific organization globally, is not trusted now by the current US Administration when it comes to identifying the ongoing Climate change.”

“We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ASAP. We can't wait many years for all people to agree. Stakeholders in the maritime industry have to continue our work together with the global scientific community, without delay”