Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships Industry Conduct Principles & Code of Practice version 4

The development of Maritime Autonomous Ship Systems (MASS) has continued at a very significant pace over the last few years with more MASS entering operation all the time. They come in a variety of sizes and have a very diverse set of operational capabilities which all place their own unique demands on those who own and operate them and the remainder of the Maritime Community. MASS are an element of the development of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) systems across the various transport sectors. 

The term MASS (Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship) has also been adopted by the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for their scoping exercise which was accepted at MSC 98 on the 13th June 2017. The MSC Working and Correspondence Groups started their work in May 2018; there was an intersessional working group meeting in September 2019 and work continues although progress has been delayed by the impact of the pandemic. Other scoping exercises are being undertaken by the Legal (LEG) and the Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL) committees. Information concerning their work is available through IMODOCS. 

Version 4 of this Code of Practice (“Code”) has been prepared by the UK Maritime Autonomous Systems Regulatory Working Group (MASRWG) and has been published by Maritime UK through the Society of Maritime Industries. It has been prepared in two parts. Part 1 is a set of Industry Conduct Principles, which supercedes the previous Code of Conduct published in 2016, and Part 2 is the Code of Practice.

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