This month has seen various ship collisions, the most dramatic being between the Stena Immaculate and the feeder containership Solong off Grimsby in the UK. Such incidents continue to occur with unsettling frequency, and while the investigation team will eventually pinpoint the causes, one fact remains indisputable: the vast majority of collisions at sea are caused by human error. Meanwhile, in commercial aviation, mid-air collisions have been virtually eliminated thanks to the software application known as TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). TCAS doesn’t just alert pilots to potentially dangerous situations via visual and auditory warning, it helps them take evasive action to take to avoid disaster. “So why doesn’t the maritime industry have its own version of TCAS?” asks Captain Jørgen Grindevoll, founder and CEO of maritime technology company SafeNav. For years, the response to maritime safety concerns has been to invest in better sensors – more advanced radars, AIS, ECDIS, LIDAR and, more recently, high-resolution computer-vision for enhanced situational awareness. “These tools are absolutely essential, but they only provide fragmented information. The problem is not the lack of data and target classification – it’s the absence of a system that integrates all this information into a single, unified decision-making platform,” Grindevoll says. Aircraft operate in three-dimensional space with the ability to climb or descend to avoid a collision, yet they still have TCAS to provide explicit, real-time instructions. Ships, in contrast, often operate in heavily trafficked waters and in poor weather conditions with far more constraints on manoeuvrability, yet navigators still rely solely on warnings and their own judgment ­– without an integrated decision-support tool. “This decision-support gap in navigational safety is exactly what the SafeNav platform is designed to close, some 15 years since the last navigation technology update, that is ECDIS,” says Grindevoll. SafeNav is a digital/AI-driven co-pilot and decision-support system that brings real-time, actionable guidance to the bridge. “Unlike standalone hardware-dependent solutions, SafeNav is a software module that seamlessly integrates with any existing navigation and situational-awareness systems, meaning shipowners don’t need to invest in yet more expensive hardware,” says Grindevoll. SafeNav is already in the process of obtaining approval in principle (AiP) from class society DNV, setting the stage for a new industry standard. Unlike full-autonomy solutions that require years of regulatory adaptation and vessel retrofitting, SafeNav can be deployed today, as a software module that works with any vessel’s existing hardware infrastructure. “This is not another autonomous vessel pitch. It’s not about replacing crews – it’s about giving navigators the tools they need to make better, faster decisions by leveraging technology already available, and still keeping the ‘human in the loop’,” Grindevoll adds. The recent incident off Grimsby is just the latest in a long list of preventable collisions, he adds. According to the European Maritime Safety Administration (EMSA), there were over 1,000 maritime collisions, contact damages and groundings in 2024, with an average of 2,500 casualties and incidents on a yearly basis. “The problem is not a lack of available technology – it’s a failure to integrate the right tools into a unified decision-making system. Aviation learned this lesson