It’s no coincidence that many of the greatest cities were built near bodies of water, from Venice to Shanghai. Both inland waterways and the open sea have offered our ancestors an easy way to transport people and resources, aiding the evolution of our societies. Today, as our modern cities become ever more polluted and congested, it seems that water-based mobility could yet again take centre stage in elevating our urban areas to the next level of development.
Leading the charge in this field is Zeabuz, a Norway-born startup supported by EIT Urban Mobility, that has created the world’s first autonomous urban ferry prototypes. In collaboration with ferry operator Torghatten under the collective name Zeam (Zero Emission Autonomous Mobility), the duo aims to transform traditional water-based transport into a more efficient, sustainable and widely accessible way to move around.
Green and captainless boats
Initially an initiative of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Zeabuz was founded in 2019 to build a more sustainable transport option that freed up urban public space. In doing so they have taken on the largely unexplored frontier of modern water-based transport.
Zeabuz’s ferries are powered by electricity and solar panels, offering environmental benefits such as reduced emissions and a lighter burden on the power grid. Additionally, in the long-term we can imagine that the nature of autonomous vessels would enable departure times to be scheduled on-demand, docking locations could be flexible and waiting times could be reduced to just a few minutes, making the ferries highly accessible and convenient for citizens. In fact, as Carl Petersson, Zeabuz’s Business Development Manager has pointed out, being electric and autonomous go hand-in-hand.
“Autonomous water transport can be better than traditional water transport – you can go electric sooner, because you can build smaller vessels and still be competitive with costs.”
Carl Petersson, Business Development Manager, Zeabuz
Testing onshore supervised autonomy
In 2023, Zeabuz and ferry operator Torghatten launched the world’s first commercial, emissions-free autonomous passenger ferry in Stockholm, Sweden under the name Zeam (Zero Emission Autonomous Mobility).
Although Zeam’s ferries can already navigate from dock to dock; to improve the scalability and economic viability of the innovation, their next goal is moving ‘on-board’ operator supervision to ‘onshore’ operator supervision. To make this leap, the team applied for EIT Urban Mobility’s Targeted Open Call and was awarded financial and mentorship support to bring their solution to the next level. Petersson explains that “within this project we’re looking to move that supervisor on land in a remote operations centre” in the startup’s hometown of Trondheim, Norway.
Unsurprisingly, Zeabuz’s work in this area has received significant attention from international investors, media and awards. Most recently the startup was announced the winner of the Special Category at the EU Startup Prize for Mobility for their exceptional contribution to the future of sustainable transportation. At the awards ceremony, Maria Tsavachidis, the CEO of EIT Urban Mobility applauded the startup’s approach for not only providing solutions, but also reframing the challenges within the urban mobility space.
Zeam’s future: Sailing beyond the horizon line
Powered by AI algorithms and sensor data, Zeam’s ferries are able to understand their surroundings and make informed decisions, such as detecting and avoiding different types of objects in all visual conditions. “If a boat changes direction or if there’s a canoe, we see it right away in less than a second. We update the course accordingly,” explains Erik Nilsson, Zeam/Torghatten’s Operational Manager.
However, these kinds of technologies have never been seen before in city environments and this novelty brings certain roadblocks: “One of the main challenges with implementing this autonomous system is on a policy level how to move from a staffed to a remote operated ship”, adds Lotta Andersson, Public Affairs Analyst and EU Coordinator at Ports of Stockholm.
Zeam’s participation in the Targeted Open Call has aided their path towards policy acceptance progression, providing them with the opportunity to closely collaborate with Ports of Stockholm, and as Andersson describes, “define safety cases”, which can be integrated into Swedish national policy.
While the foundations are being laid for policy acceptance, Zeam is also busy planning its roadmap for the future. Within their overall goal of making water-based transport more sustainable, more affordable and more convenient, their next move is to build a scalable system that allows for captainless ferries to move in sync and adapt to the needs of citizens. “The future of urban autonomous mobility is a network of several small ferries that work together and create frequent departures. So, whenever you go down to the water, there are not too many minutes until the next departure”, forecasts Zeabuz’s Business Development Manager, Carl Petersson. This flexible and responsive network will redefine yet again, in true Zeam style, what is possible for urban transport.
