Essential in this commentary, entitled Applying AI to decision-making in shipping and commodities markets (American Shipper 27.08.2020), are four things that Ådland noted that shipping had long before Uber:

• First, shipping inherently utilizes dynamic pricing because of the volatile nature of rates, and this has been the case for a few centuries.
• Second, the industry already matches demand and supply in a highly efficient manner.
• Third, the industry fully utilizes its assets — when there are empty ships it is because there is no demand, not because demand and supply are being poorly matched.
• Fourth, shipowners have elevated regulatory and tax arbitrage to a fine art, and they have been doing this since the 1970s.

The featured publication by Ådland, Prochazka and Wallace is The value of foresight in the drybulk freight market (Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2019, 129, 232-245).

The master thesis by Herman Bomholt and Torsten Thune (supervised by Ådland) is also featured.

The commentary concludes with the expectation that Ådland and his colleagues at the Norwegian School of Economics (and others) will continue pushing the envelope while they wait for the rest of the industry to catch up with them.

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