# Costs and Benefits of Autonomous Shipping--A Literature Review
## 3 Results
### Basic Costs of Operating Autonomous Slips
#### 3.2.1 Bulk Carrier
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Operating Costs** & **Voyage Costs** & **Capital Costs** \\ \hline Crew wages (\(-\)) \({}^{1}\) & Air resistance (\(-\)) & Decchouse (\(-\)) \\ \hline Crew related costs (\(-\)) & Light ship weight (\(-\)) & Hotel system (\(-\)) \\ \hline Shore Control Centre (\(+\)) & Hotel system (\(-\)) & Redundant technical systems (\(+\)) \\ \hline Maintenance crews (\(+\)) & Boarding crew for port calls (\(+\)) & Autonomous ship technology (\(+\)) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \({}^{\dagger}\) Minus sign (\(-\)) represents a reduction of costs, plus (\(+\)) denotes an increase.  
\end{table} 
Table 6: Costs of running autonomous bulker—based on [21]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Cost Type** & **Includes** & **Savings/Additional Costs per Year per Vessel** \\ \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{Operating costs} \\ \hline Crew cost & Wages and related costs & \(-\)USD 945,000 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Cost for general stores} & e.g., medical, cabin, safety equipment, maintenance of e.g., life rafts and spares & \(-\)USD 67,000 \\  & for the hotel system & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Shore control centre} & Overall personal costs & \(+\)USD 116,000 \\ \cline{2-3}  & Investment costs (mUSD 2.1) & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Operating costs per year per 90 ships & \(+\)USD 33,055 \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{(USD 875,000)} \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Maintenance crews in ports} & Maintaining the propulsion plant, auxiliary plants, supply systems, electrical and autonomous systems, etc. & \\ \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{Voyage costs} \\ \hline Fuel costs & Fuel consumption & \(-\)6\% (12–15\% according to ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016)) \\ \hline Fuel consumption & Air resistance & \(-\)1\% \\ \hline Fuel consumption & Light ship weight & \(-\)2.6\% \\ \hline Fuel consumption & Removed hotel system & \(-\)33\% \\ \hline Boarding crew for port calls & Port call costs & \(+\)20\% (approximately USD 20,000 per call) \\ \hline Boarding crew & Unscheduled assistance & Not estimated \\ \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{Capital costs} \\ \hline Decchouse and hotel system & Removal of hotel, accommodation system, and deckhouse & \(-\)5\% (hotel and accommodation) \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{–approx. 1–10\% (decchhouse)} \\ \hline Autonomous ship technology & Specific autonomous ship technology & \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{(e.g., Autonomous Navigation System),} \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{and redundant technical systems} & Redundancies (e.g., communication, electrical systems, propulsion) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Costs of running an autonomous bulker based on [21]. The lack of crew on board the autonomous ship, on one hand, results in the reduction of crew wages and crew-related costs (e.g., safety equipment), but, on another, it introduces a necessity of development and operation of the Shore Control Centre, which is estimated as 33,000 USD per vessel per year. All the repairs are expected to be carried out in ports by the specialized crew, which generates additional costs. However, in Table 6, a qualitative assessment of relative changes in the given group of costs is provided for an autonomous ship, indicating which type of costs are expected to increase and what costs are expected to decrease, compared to a conventional bulk carrier.