Innovative Application for Dynamic Navigational Support and Transport Management on Inland Waterways: Experience from a Research Project on the Danube River

The widespread use of inland waterways as a common transport mode is a main objective of European traffic policy, specifically in view of the expected dramatic increase in transport along the Trans-European Network, a main economic lifeline in Europe. Transport operators’ limited acceptance of the inland waterway reflects unreliable calculations of estimated time of arrival, shifting water levels or other environmental events, unexpected delays in passing locks and borders, and insufficient transport monitoring capability. Implementing a telematics-based river information service will help to alleviate waterway transportation problems on the Danube River early in the day and improve the safety and productivity of transportation by integrating river-based transport information services with the intermodal transport chain. The proposed system meets the requirements of the Supreme Shipping Authority of Austria to generate a tactical and strategic traffic image on the Danube in Austria to fulfill its legal commitments to ensure safe and secure transport operations on the Danube. Communications interfaces will link the Austrian network connecting other users downstream as well (e.g., Hungary, Slovakia). Traffic information services will be provided to ship operators, ship owners, and transport operators carrying people and goods. The system consists of a transponder-based network using radio links embedded in a wire-based communications network on shore controlled by central management facilities providing tactical traffic information on a geographic-information-system-based application. A separate system and network management unit will ensure safe operations with a low failure rate, depending on the level of redundancy implemented. The overall system concept uses the results and provisional standards defined in the European Union project Inland Navigation Demonstrator for River Information Services. The basic functionality of the system was demonstrated in a field trial near Hinesburg, Austria, in mid-April 1999, and in Grain, Austria, in November 1999. The main system will be developed in a test center in Vienna during 2001 and 2002.