Optimization Model to Manage Ship Fuel Consumption and Navigation Time

Owners of vessels are interested in the lowest possible operating costs. These costs are mainly related to fuel consumption during navigation. To manage it rationally, the main decision-making problem is selecting the proper parameters of the ship’s propulsion system during navigation. In practice, operators of ships equipped with controllable pitch propellers controlled in manual mode make a selection of the commanded outputs based on their own knowledge, intuition, and all accessible information regarding sea conditions. In many cases, their decisions are unreasonable or incorrect. Therefore, it would be desirable to support their decision-making in selecting the commanded outputs.

For this reason, we have decided to develop a decision support system in the form of an expert system. This computer-aided system supports the selection of the commanded outputs of the ship’s propulsion system. The most important component of this system is the two-criteria optimization model, allowing the rational management of the ship fuel consumption and navigation time.