Amendments are planned to the Pilotage Act to allow remote, or shore-based, pilotage. The legislative amendments aim to remove any obstacles to testing of remote pilotage and to allow experiments in new technologies and better use of data in pilotage activities.
- The potential of digitalisation can now be better exploited in pilotage. Automatisation is becoming a part of maritime transport and it is important to be able to safely experiment the new technologies of remote and automatic pilotage, for example, says Minister of Transport and Communications Anne Berner.
Already the current technology allows ships to be piloted from a position other than on board the vessel concerned. However, the current legislation does not allow even experiments of remote pilotage. The aim of the reform project launched is to update the Pilotage Act to include experiments, and in future enable an entirely remote or automatic pilotage process.
A draft of the new Pilotage Act is due to be circulated for comment at the end of 2017. The Act is to be discussed in Parliament in spring 2018.
