“…Generally speaking, there are four main categories of methods for the energy saving and emission reduction of ships, which are as follows: optimal design of ship form [2], application of green energy [3], waste heat recovery [4], and operation optimization of ships, etc. Modern ships typically first collect ship performance data [5], then employ one or more of the aforementioned methods to reduce the fuel consumption for better economy and to cut carbon emissions in order to meet the increasingly strict standards, such as the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) [6] and the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) [7], for cargo ships. Among these methods, operation optimization is an efficient but low-cost way to reduce energy consumption for a ship, by means of speed optimization [8,9], navigation scheduling optimization [10], route optimization [11], and trim optimization, etc.…”