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Open research questions in Maritime Navigation and Safety

107 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 588 Maritime Navigation and Safety papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Qualitative descriptive study, not relying on statistical procedures. Limited to the KM. Binaiya ship and its operating route.

    Analysis of the Effectiveness of Using VHF Radio Channel 12 to Assist the Maneuvering Guidance Process on the Km. Binaiya Ship · 2026 · DOI

  • Quantitative SNR analysis. Further study on the impact of traffic density on VHF Channel 12 efficacy.

    Analysis of the Effectiveness of Using VHF Radio Channel 12 to Assist the Maneuvering Guidance Process on the Km. Binaiya Ship · 2026 · DOI

  • The availability of high-quality and diverse datasets. The restriction imposed by the offline environment. The lack of effective systems for maritime piracy detection and risk zone prediction.

    AI-Based Maritime Piracy Detection and Risk Zone Prediction System · 2026 · DOI

  • The availability of high-quality and diverse datasets was a primary limitation. The use of simulated and anonymized data limited the model's ability to generalize to real-world scenarios. The restriction imposed by the offline environment increased development time and complexity.

    AI-Based Maritime Piracy Detection and Risk Zone Prediction System · 2026 · DOI

  • Incompleteness of AIS data. Complexity of AIS data. Need for expertise in spatio-temporal databases and maritime domain knowledge.

    CLEAR: A Knowledge-Centric Vessel Trajectory Analysis Platform · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies the need for further research in underrepresented areas. The study highlights the importance of considering environmental sustainability and system resilience in maritime IoT research.

    A bibliometric analysis on Internet of Things research for maritime industry 4.0 · 2026 · DOI

  • Scarcity and underreporting of offshore accident data; complexity of identifying the causes and consequences of allision accidents; need for a more advanced probabilistic model for risk assessment and management

    Probabilistic Risk model of Ship Allision Accidents with Offshore Platforms · 2026 · DOI

  • Maritime students must develop fluency, grammatical accuracy and range, content organization, vocabulary, and pronunciation to communicate effectively in English. Effective English communication is crucial in maritime education, where it plays a significant role in classroom discussions, simulations, oral presentations, and future shipboard operations.

    Speaking Performance Among Maritime Students · 2026 · DOI

  • Maritime workers face economic and occupational risks. The study highlights the need for further detail in certain areas of Saudi law. The study's conclusions may inform policy and regulatory decisions.

    Statutory Protection of Maritime Worker against Economic and Occupational Risks: An Analytical Study · 2026 · DOI

  • Technical challenges, such as signal interference and device malfunction. Operational challenges, such as limited human resource competence and weak regulatory supervision.

    Automatic Identification System (AIS) Based Monitoring System and Its Role in Improving Maritime Transportation Safety in Indonesia · 2026 · DOI

  • Ensuring the safe navigation and collision avoidance of vessels at sea. Balancing the need for exemptions with the need for consistent regulatory compliance. Addressing the complexities of vessel design and operational constraints.

    Operationalizing COLREG exemptions and equivalents: Data-driven evidence via association rule mining and network analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Maritime accidents can result in numerous fatalities, significant financial losses, and serious environmental harm. The traditional ECDIS alert mechanisms operate independently and reactively. Navigation in coastal waters is limited by heavy traffic, narrow channels, and shallow waters.

    A New Distance Safety Index Framework for Proactive Navigation Decision-Support in ECDIS · 2026 · DOI

  • Fishermen face severe chronic stress with significant health impacts, including an increasing risk of suicide. The mental health of fishermen remains limited despite extensive academic discussions on biophysical issues. The current research on fishermen's mental health is fragmented and largely stems from localized cross-sectional surveys.

    Mental health of fishermen: current research status and future directions—insights from seafarer studies (a scoping review) · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies significant safety issues associated with WIG craft operations. The study notes that the distinctive operating characteristics of WIG craft require advanced navigation and communication systems. The study highlights the need for integrated navigation and communication systems aligned with multi-island operational environments.

    Analysis of Defence Line Weaving for Safety Guidance Strips and Land Aircraft Safety and Communication · 2026 · DOI

  • MMSI tampering compromises situational awareness and poses risks to traffic management. AIS lacks robust authentication, enabling message-level tampering. Vessel identity verification is fundamental to maritime traffic safety and supervision.

    Reliable vessel identity verification for maritime traffic systems using AIS physical features · 2026 · DOI

  • The black-box nature of complex models, such as GANs and VAEs, creates trust gaps between the system and the ship's engineers. The lack of transparency in traditional deep learning models poses a significant barrier to adoption.

    LLMs as Cognitive Partners in Shipping 4.0: An Extend AI Approach to Maritime Predictive Maintenance Training · 2026 · DOI

  • Cyber risk governance on board Indonesian-flagged vessels remains largely undeveloped. The study highlights the need for increased awareness and training for ship captains and crew members on cybersecurity threats.

    Ship Captain's Readiness to Face the Threat of Cyber Attack on the Ship's Navigation System · 2026 · DOI

  • Marine pollution due to increased maritime traffic. Limited capabilities of the Croatian Coast Guard. Need for international cooperation.

    AI-Supported Modernization of the Croatian Coast Guard: Marine Pollution Response in Exclusive Economic Zone · 2026 · DOI

  • Existing trajectory clustering approaches suffer from computational inefficiency and poor interpretability. There is a need for an efficient and interpretable clustering-based approach for maritime traffic pattern recognition.

    An efficient and interpretable clustering-based framework for large-scale maritime traffic pattern recognition · 2026 · DOI

  • The study does not provide a comprehensive evaluation of the drill's effectiveness. The study is limited to the MV Pacific Bulk ship and may not be generalizable to other ships.

    Analysis of the Implementation of Abandon ship drill to Face Emergency Situations on the MV Pacific Bulk Ship · 2026 · DOI

  • Further studies should be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the drill. Studies should be conducted on other ships to generalize the findings.

    Analysis of the Implementation of Abandon ship drill to Face Emergency Situations on the MV Pacific Bulk Ship · 2026 · DOI

  • Human error in ship navigation. Inconsistent GPS performance in tropical waters. The need for advanced navigation technology in busy shipping lanes.

    Maintaining Maritime Safety Through the Use of Navigational Equipment in Accordance with Solas Chapter V · 2026 · DOI

  • The study has a single-case study focus (Gas Arar) that lacks broad generalizability. The study relies on participant observation during a short period (July 2024-2025). The study lacks quantitative data, such as GPS error rates, in tropical conditions.

    Maintaining Maritime Safety Through the Use of Navigational Equipment in Accordance with Solas Chapter V · 2026 · DOI

  • Port State Control (PSC) inspections play a critical role in enforcing international maritime safety and environmental standards, yet little is known about how compliance behaviour interacts with economic cycles.

    Economic Cycles and Regulatory Compliance: A Bidirectional Analysis of Vessel Detentions Under Port State Control · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need for a knowledge-centric approach to analyze AIS data. Prior work has addressed the challenges of analyzing AIS data, but there is still a gap in providing a platform that enables non-expert users to analyze vessel trajectories effectively.

    CLEAR: A Knowledge-Centric Vessel Trajectory Analysis Platform · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Maritime Navigation and Safety

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107 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 588 Maritime Navigation and Safety papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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