UniTS has a new spin-off: SIPEOM – Società Italiana Previsione Efficienza Operativa Marittima, which develops digital solutions to reduce fuel consumption and emissions in maritime transport.

Delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), the system enables ship operators to simulate fuel consumption and emissions and to optimise energy performance under different operating conditions. The idea was developed by Luca Braidotti (CEO & Co-founder), Serena Bertagna (COO & Co-founder), Vittorio Bucci (CCO & Co-founder) and Martino Trevisan (IT Advisor).

Professor Bertagna, in practical terms, why should a maritime operator adopt this newly patented system?

A maritime operator should adopt the SIPEOM system because today they must manage, at the same time, rising operating costs and increasingly stringent environmental regulations. Our solution proposes a probabilistic approach to route planning that makes it possible to estimate fuel consumption and emissions realistically already at the strategic planning stage. This helps operators select alternatives with a lower environmental impact and manage the risk of exceeding regulatory constraints and facing higher operating costs—delivering tangible benefits for budgeting and fleet management. The method is based on a digital model and an advanced statistical framework.

How did the idea come about, and what is its innovative potential?

The idea stems from a growing need in the maritime sector to assess, in advance, the operational and energy impact of a route without relying on short-term weather forecasts. Today, shipowners often have to make strategic decisions months ahead, frequently with partial or unreliable long-range information.

From this need, our approach took shape: a method based on a digital model of the vessel that can estimate not only a single value, but a realistic range of possible outcomes—useful for comparing alternatives and identifying choices that ensure greater efficiency and a lower environmental footprint.

The innovation lies precisely in bringing, into the strategic phase, a level of realism that is usually achieved only during operations, giving shipping companies an additional tool to make informed choices and reduce decision uncertainty.

Are there similar solutions on the market?

Several tools are already available to support ship operations, such as weather routing systems or digital twins aimed at short-term monitoring and optimisation. These are valuable technologies, but they are designed to act close to departure time or during the voyage.

Our approach, instead, sits upstream—at the stage when the route is defined—making it possible to select low-impact, low-fuel routes while quantifying the risk of incurring penalties linked to a ship’s emissions intensity.

The key difference, therefore, is not to replace existing solutions, but to complement them—offering a tool that supports more informed strategic decisions, especially when many different options must be evaluated well in advance.