Waste Free Shipping

How do We help You Reduce Fuel Consumption And Decarbonize?

Tugs are powerful machines, but they are not made for speeding. Around 8 knots and above the fuel consumption goes through the roof. Yet in most ports, between 40% and 70% of all light-sailing, i.e. mobilization and demobilization is done at speeds over 8 knots and even up to 11-12 knots, often for no good reason. Our solution helps to bring sailing speeds down where possible and thereby reduce your fuel cost and decarbonize your operation.

CO2 reduction in Towage Business

Effective software that helps you reduce fuel consumption

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

A proven successful method for reducing speeds and thereby fuel consumption up to 25%.

No initial investment in hardware or software is needed. All information will be visible in the reports.

2024

The Value You Get

Easy Implementation

We only use AIS data, so we can literally start any day (and stop just as easy).

Captain Engagement

Engages and motivates crews to reduce fuel consumption.

Decarbonization

Fast and easy decarbonization of your operations.

Management Light

Really no management time required so doesn’t place a burden on your busy teams.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Understand

Make a baseline or status quo assessment of the sailing speeds in your fleet and identify opportunities for saving fuel and emissions.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Initiate

Project kick-off by sharing baseline reports with the captains.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Evaluate

Weekly speed reports facilitating speeding changes.

Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Solve

Sustain change and address structural issues.

We can help you reduce fuel consumption and decarbonize

Why our product is effective – The human element in decarbonization

Our solution focuses on the human element in speeding. Speeding during mobilization and demobilization is done for many reasons; some are operationally valid, as the need to speed for being on time to assist an incoming ship after a last-minute call by dispatch.

But more often than not, speeding is not necessary at all and just done out of habit or to experience the power of the tug. Our performance reports engage captains and make them aware of their sailing patterns and the impact thereof without micromanaging them on every single trip.

2024

Case study Client

Sailing speed optimization resulting in € 250,000 saved in costs annually.

A large regional harbor and terminal towage operator was looking for a method to save fuel without investing in technology upgrades. They had already installed fuel consumption meters on board a substantial amount of their tugs and were monitoring the fuel consumption closely. Yet they could not see the reductions they were hoping to achieve.

Reporting on the sailing speeds of their fleet while mobilizing and demobilizing showed that there was significant potential to reduce fuel consumption by reducing speeds. While they knew that for many of their tugs the optimal speed was below 8 knots, the speed reports LionRock Maritime provided showed that there was excessive speeding over 8 knots, even up to 60% of all light sailing.

Despite this finding, the client was hesitant to implement LionRock’s “Waste Free Shipping” solution. How could simple performance feedback on speeding add any value in the drive to lower fuel use?

We hence started small with the implementation in one of their operations. It involved a water system that incorporated 3 ports where our client has 6 tugs in operation. The baseline speed measurement showed that speeding in excess of 8 knots was done around 60% of all free sailing time. The implementation involved weekly speed performance reporting on a captain level. Within 2 months, speeding went down from 60% on average to less than 20%. Representing an annual saving of about EUR 250.000,-

Following this success, the client chose to implement LionRock’s Waste Free Shipping solution in 6 more ports.

speed optimization

-40%

Speeding Excess Reduced

Cost saving

€ 250.000+

Annual Cost Saving

CO2 emission reduction

-42%

CO2 Emission Reduction

Our Customers

“The results exceeded our expectations. The good thing about LionRock’s product is that it does not require any investment in hardware, nor a lot of management time. It is simple, fast, has saved us significant costs and reduced our emissions.” - Walter Collet, Managing Director at Fairplay Towage

Contact

Do you want to know more about Port Exploration solutions?

Location

Beethovenstraat 95-5
1077 HT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Contact Us

Phone : +31 (0)6 144 59 097

Frequently asked questions

How are you able to distinguish lightailing mode from operational mode?

Our proprietary software analyses AIS data and looks for ship assist patterns. We first recognize the ship assist / operational time. All the remaining sailing time is then light sailing, which is what we track for saving fuel.

We already get a speed alert and the dispatcher is supposed to follow-up. What can your product add?

The speed alert is a solution we see in many ports, yet we still need to come across an example where it is actually successful in reducing sailing speeds. Our product does not reprimand captains for speeding on individual trips, but place the autonomy and responsibility with them to reduce their speeds over time and structurally.

Are there any investments or technical upgrades required to the fleet for this product?

Absolutely not. We only use AIS data and our proprietary software does the rest. There is no requirement for investment in hard- or software.

What do you consider ECO speed?

The exact speed at which a tug starts to consume excessive amounts of fuel depends on many factors, including of course the type of engine and size of the tug. In general however for most tugs between 8 and 8,5 tugs can be considered ECO speed. We can adjust our reporting based on the speed level that you want to steer your tugs at.

What if in our port, the current makes a big influence on sailing speeds?

We adjust for that by converting the Speed Over Ground readings from AIS to Speed Through Water with a conversion function in our software. However, for these ports, we then of course need information on current levels in addition to the AIS data we use.