What Is EMSA's STARRS Study on RoRo EV Fire?
EMSA's STARRS study, run by Bureau Veritas and RISE, is building the missing fire-test evidence for EVs and alternative-fuel vehicles on ro-ro ships.
EMSA's STARRS study — Safe Transport of Alternative Fuel Vehicles on Ro-Ro Ships — is the EU's effort to build the experimental fire-safety evidence that rules for EVs and alternative-fuel vehicles have lacked. Run by Bureau Veritas and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, its first report landed on 24 November 2025; real-scale fire testing follows through 2026 to inform future IMO instruments.
What the STARRS study is
STARRS is a multi-part European Maritime Safety Agency research programme, conducted by Bureau Veritas and RISE, whose stated objective is to provide recommendations for industry guidance and input to the development of IMO instruments. It covers the full alternative-fuel span — battery-electric (BEV), hybrid (HEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles running lithium-ion batteries, plus liquefied-petroleum-gas (LPG), compressed-natural-gas (CNG) and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). The first deliverable, published 24 November 2025, is a technical and regulatory review — not test results.
Why EMSA commissioned it now
Because the loss record kept outrunning the evidence base. Allianz Commercial's Safety & Shipping Review 2025 recorded 250 fire and explosion incidents in 2024 — up 20% year-on-year and the highest in a decade — with lithium-ion cargo a named driver. The Fremantle Highway (2023, 498 battery-electric units among 3,783 vehicles) and the Morning Midas (2025, roughly 3,000 vehicles including EVs and hybrids) both showed crews fighting deck fires with limited AFV-specific guidance. STARRS is meant to replace assumption with tested data.
What the first report actually covers
The November 2025 deliverable is a scoping review, deliberately. It maps the regulatory landscape for AFVs across maritime and non-maritime domains, summarises the state of experimental fire-safety findings for AFVs in ro-ro spaces, and reviews prior numerical modelling — establishing where the knowledge gaps sit before any live testing. EMSA is explicit that these reviews serve as the technical justification for recommendations in the upcoming parts of the study. In short: the report defines the questions; the 2026 real-scale fire tests are meant to answer them.
Why detection is the gap it circles
Because an alternative-fuel fire on an enclosed vehicle deck is hard to see early and hard to fight late. The regulatory direction already assumes this: amended SOLAS Chapter II-2 entered force on 1 January 2026, requiring individually addressable fire detection and linear heat detection across vehicle spaces on new vehicle carriers. STARRS's experimental phase is positioned to test how these fires actually develop — the off-gas and thermal-runaway behaviour that decides whether a detector trips in time — which is exactly the evidence class societies and underwriters need to move detection from precaution to specification.
What this means for owners and underwriters
For shipowners, STARRS signals that AFV fire safety is moving from voluntary caution toward tested, IMO-bound requirements — the moment to understand detection coverage on the vehicle deck is before the rules harden, not after. For class societies and underwriters, a European, experimentally grounded evidence base narrows the uncertainty that has made AFV fire risk hard to price. The study will not end car-deck fires, but it should end the excuse that the data does not exist.
Sources
- 1. EMSA — Safe Transport of Alternative Fuel Vehicles on Ro-Ro Ships (STARRS/STARSS) study; first deliverable 'Technical and regulatory review' published 24 November 2025; conducted by Bureau Veritas and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden — emsa.europa.eu
- 2. Allianz Commercial Safety & Shipping Review 2025 — 250 fire/explosion incidents in 2024 (+20% YoY, decade high), lithium-ion cargo a named driver — commercial.allianz.com
- 3. IMO SOLAS Ch. II-2 amendments in force 1 January 2026 — individually addressable detection and linear heat detection for vehicle spaces on new vehicle carriers — imo.org
- 4. Lloyd's List / gCaptain reporting — Fremantle Highway (3,783 vehicles, 498 BEVs, 2023) and Morning Midas (~3,000 vehicles including EVs and hybrids, 2025) — lloydslist.com, gcaptain.com
Questions, answered
What is the EMSA STARRS study?+
STARRS — Safe Transport of Alternative Fuel Vehicles on Ro-Ro Ships — is a European Maritime Safety Agency research programme conducted by Bureau Veritas and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. It reviews the regulations and fire-safety evidence for battery-electric, hybrid, gas- and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, then runs real-scale fire testing to inform future IMO guidance. Its first report was published on 24 November 2025.
Has STARRS produced fire-test results yet?+
Not yet. The first deliverable, from November 2025, is a technical and regulatory review — it maps the rules, the existing experimental findings and the knowledge gaps for alternative-fuel vehicles in ro-ro spaces. The real-scale fire testing that will generate new data runs through 2026, and its results are intended to feed later recommendations and IMO instruments.
Which vehicles does the study cover?+
The full alternative-fuel range: battery-electric (BEV), hybrid (HEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles running lithium-ion batteries, plus liquefied-petroleum-gas (LPG), compressed-natural-gas (CNG) and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). That breadth matters because each fuel type fails differently, so a single detection or suppression approach cannot be assumed to cover them all.
Why does STARRS matter for fire detection?+
Because detection is the recognised weak point for alternative-fuel fires on enclosed vehicle decks. Amended SOLAS II-2 already requires individually addressable and linear heat detection on new vehicle carriers from January 2026. STARRS's experimental phase is positioned to show how these fires actually develop, giving underwriters and class societies the tested basis to treat early detection as a specification rather than a precaution.
Continue the thread
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