Data-Driven Decarbonization and Digital Transformation for Sustainable Shipping

The maritime sector faces a dual mandate: meeting the International Maritime Organization’s decarbonization targets while maintaining safe and economically viable operations under increasingly prescriptive regulatory instruments. The Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII), Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI), and Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) have transformed emissions compliance from a voluntary ambition into an auditable engineering obligation — one that demands accurate, real-time data and robust decision-support tools at ship and fleet level.This Research Topic addresses that engineering and operational layer. Decarbonization at sea is ultimately a data problem: heterogeneous information flows from AIS transponders, onboard fuel meters and sensors, engine management systems, and port operations must be integrated, validated, and translated into decisions that ship operators and fleet managers can act on. Progress in this space — from voyage optimization and predictive energy modelling to fuel transition planning and digital performance monitoring — is scattered across disciplines that rarely publish together. This Topic brings them into a single, operationally focused collection.The scope is explicitly distinct from research examining AI’s role in connecting maritime emissions to ocean or coastal ecosystem outcomes. The contribution we seek is technical and managerial: how do ship operators, port authorities, and transportation managers build the data infrastructure, analytical models, and decision frameworks that make CII compliance and deep decarbonization feasible in practice?This Topic targets researchers working in marine engineering, naval architecture, transportation science, operations research, energy systems, and maritime data science. It complements ecosystem-focused and policy-focused collections by providing the engineering and operational evidence base that regulators, operators, and technology developers need.We welcome original research articles, reviews, and technical reports on the following themes, with an emphasis on operational applicability and transferability to real fleets and port systems:- Regulatory compliance modelling: CII rating prediction, EEXI assessment, and EEDI optimization under different operational and retrofitting scenarios- Integrated maritime data systems: methods for fusing AIS, onboard sensor, port operation, and weather data into reliable decision inputs; data quality, latency, and standardization challenges- Ship energy efficiency evaluation: operational energy auditing, benchmark setting, and performance monitoring at vessel and fleet level- Alternative and low-carbon fuels — engineering perspective: fuel system integration, retrofitting feasibility, operational safety, and supply-chain readiness (excluding ecosystem lifecycle assessment, which is addressed in complementary Research Topics)- Voyage optimization for compliance: speed optimization, trim management, and weather routing framed as CII improvement levers- Carbon accounting and MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, Verification): data pipelines and computational methods for accurate emissions accounting under EU ETS, IMO DCS, and national schemes- Intelligent energy management systems: real-time control architectures, predictive maintenance, and onboard AI for fuel consumption reduction- Port-level decarbonization operations: shore power integration, turnaround optimization, and port data exchange frameworks- Decision support and fleet management: optimization models, scenario tools, and management frameworks that translate technical data into operational and strategic decisions for shipping companies and port authorities Topic editors: Zhihui Hu, Qian Zhang, Zhi Yuan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81099/data-driven-decarbonization-and-digital-transformation-for-sustainable-shipping