Hyundai Glovis is introducing an in-house artificial intelligence system to plan loading on its pure car and truck carriers. The company says the move will improve efficiency and safety as vehicle volumes and port rotations grow more complex.
For ship managers overseeing large vehicle carrier fleets, stowage planning remains one of the most intricate operational tasks. A single pure car and truck carrier can move more than 6,000 vehicles on one voyage, each with different dimensions, weights and discharge ports.
Hyundai Glovis said it will deploy an AI based stowage planning system across its PCTCs to address these challenges. The system relies on a detailed data model that divides a vessel’s interior into decks and zones, mapping structural features and vehicle movement paths within the ship.
By entering vehicle types, volumes and ports of loading and discharge, the algorithm generates a loading plan that determines routes and positions for each unit. It checks for movement bottlenecks, height and weight limits and ensures that the loading sequence aligns with the discharge schedule at each port before confirming the final plan.
Vehicle carriers present particular complications for operators. Internal configurations differ from ship to ship and cargo composition changes on every voyage. A poorly structured plan can leave vehicles for early discharge trapped behind units bound for later ports, forcing costly and time consuming reshuffling.
According to a company official, the system has already reduced planning time by half compared with conventional methods. “As the technology advances, we expect the time required to fall by more than 90 percent,” the official said.
For shipowners and managers focused on turnaround times and port efficiency, the adoption of AI driven planning tools reflects a wider shift towards data led operations in specialised segments of the fleet.
