Keywords

1 The Cycle of WG 125

The concept of River Information Services (RIS) was first initiated within the European Union in 1998. Since the first European RIS initiatives, this concept on information exchange to support traffic and transport management in inland navigation has found its way throughout the world. River Information Services are in an implementation stage in the different continents of the world, like America, Europe and Asia.

PIANC established a Working Group in 2002 that developed the Guidelines for River Information Services. These Guidelines are an important pillar in the implementation of River Information Services and have been updated in 2004, 2011 and 2019.

While the initial guidelines were initiated and inspired by academic research, the 2004 edition was more oriented on further developments of services and standards like Inland AIS (Automatic Identification System), Inland ECDIS (Electronic Chard & Display Information System), NtS (Notices to Skippers) and ERI (Electronic Reporting International). Initially these standards were addressed as RIS key technologies.

In 2009 PIANC established the Permanent Working Group 125 with the task to keep the Guidelines for River Information Services over the years to come up to date due their technical and innovative character.

Thanks to a number of small implementation projects by means of Proof-of-Concepts and Pilots, the guidelines in 2011 addressed the importance of having operational services within the domain of Traffic related Services. An academic approach is left behind and made room for an approach more based on experience and developments.

In 2019 the guidelines aligned the initial RIS Key Technologies with the maritime e-Navigation concept, including the introduction of the e-Nav concept in which operational and technical services are defined. Developments in the area of corridor management were incorporated, primarily affecting the existing RIS Traffic Management Information service, but also highlights the needs to support Transport Logistics (Transport related Services). Finally, the 2019 guidelines were revised to move from a European-oriented perspective to guidelines optimized of use on a worldwide scale.

Finally the cycle of going from academic via Research to Developments is in 2022 with the concept of “synchromodal transport” back at the start of a new cycle, being an new academic era.

2 Synchromodal Transport

During the last years different emerging threats made a serious impression on mankind. Besides shocks of nature due to climate change or pandemics, also technological shocks due to automatization and digitalization are part of the world we live in today. Because of these shocks both public and private parties are aware they need to make their business processes not only more resilient but if possible also preventive.

A prominent statement towards climate change has been made by different governmental bodies by elaborating a green deal with actions defined in different domains like industry, energy, agriculture, … and transport. To be able to meet the goals as defined in the policy documents (e.g. by the European Commission) mobility needs to be Sustainable, Smart and Resilient in which there is an important role to be fulfilled by Inland Water Transport (IWT) and River Information Services (RIS). To become:

  • Sustainable, the share of transport by IWT needs to be increased;

  • Smart, the full potential of data needs to be unleashed, freight transport needs to be paperless and automated mobility will be deployed on a large scale;

  • Resilient, a fully multimodal transport network for sustainable and smart transport needs to be operational.

Recent years some new concepts were born in the field of transport and logistics, looking to optimize the whole transport chain and tackle the challenges as defined within the green deal. One of the remarkable ideas was the concept of the Physical Internet. If we are able to translate the principles of the Digital Internet, i.e. the transport of (data) containers aka packets over a network in an optimal and orchestrated way, to a Physical Internet (PI) we could have the same benefits in real life when transporting (goods) containers over a transport network of different transport modes. Since this concept requires a very high automated infrastructure together with an intelligent infostructure (aka digital infrastructure) to orchestrate the whole transport chain, a final implementation is foreseen by some organizations at around 2040. Although this horizon is quite far away, governmental and private bodies are already preparing themselves to make the transition as smooth as possible.

The principle behind the Physical Internet is based on the idea of synchromodal transport for which a description was elaborated by workgroup 125:

“The most efficient and appropriate transport solution in terms of sustainability, transport costs, duration and their reliability, in which the configuration of the transport chain is not static during transport, but is flexible, being able to adapt the mode of adequate transport according to the conditions in real time of infrastructure and capacity, through collaboration and the exchange of information in real time of all modes of transport, the terminal facilities and the actors involved in the transport logistics chain.”

This description is fully compliant with the three objectives as defined within the green deal, i.e. looking towards a sustainable, smart and resilient transport of goods and people (aka mobility) and will demand a full cooperation between the different transport modes to realize these objectives.

While private companies are looking towards Industry 4.0, the governmental bodies are making investments in both digital and automatization initiatives like River Information Services (RIS), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), e-Navigation (e-Nav), ERTMS, RAILWAY 4.0, …

To make the inland waterways a valuable and trustful link within a synchromodal network different challenges need to be tackled:

  • Geographical upscaling: River Information Services will need to interconnect different stakeholders of a waterway network on a continent by means of a (pan-) corridor management approach versus a national or regionally focussed approach like it is nowadays. This current narrow approach is hindering the growth of inland navigation.

  • Synchromodal ready: Once these international waterway networks are able to offer operational and technical services, interconnection with other transport modes will be required. By exchange knowledge, experiences, ideas, technologies and lessons learned these different transport modes can converge to a similar approach and framework. This approach will finally result in a synchromodal network. The big challenge will be the coordination of such an approach covering and steering the different transport modes to act to fulfil a common goal and become synchromodal ready.

  • Future Proof: new technologies will allow new applications in the area of infrastructure and vessels, including increasing requirements towards data and information service. At the same time, these new technologies will challenge the existing technical and operational services to evolve. These services must be designed to be scalable, trustful, of high quality and flexible enough to resist future demands. In the specific case of automated vessels, this need to be addressed within the concept and framework of Smart Shipping. Within this framework not only the vessel is taken into account, but also the interaction with the shore infrastructure (bridges, locks, traffic centres, …). Therefore RIS developments must be closely in line with the concept of Smart Shipping (WorkGroup 210).

3 The Approach of Pianc WG 125 (2019–2022)

How is the PIANC WG 125 going to deal with these complex challenges? The final goal is a valuable contribution of Inland Navigation to a well performing synchromodal transport network, therefore a good insight in other transport modes, together with a decent knowledge in different technology trends, is necessary.

Since River Information Services are covering a set of services on both traffic and transport management, RIS should be able to close the current gaps to reach the above mentioned goal. Related to other transport modes investigations will be necessary and done in:

  • Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) related to road traffic

  • Telematics Applications within the EU rail system, mainly focused on Freight services (TAF)

  • e-Navigation (e-Nav) related to Maritime Navigation

These investigations in intelligent transport systems of other transport modes will allow the PIANC WG 125 to look for similarities and connections with inland navigation and thus defining new or updating existing River Information Services (both operational and technical) to support practical use cases. E.g. once Smart Shipping is able to take place in a safe way with maximum respect of harmonization and standardisation, one of the next phases can be focused on efficiency within traffic management.

Finally these new or updated services need to be harmonized in a worldwide way, so inland waterway networks across continents can be interconnected via Maritime Services (i.e. concept of e-Navigation) allowing industry to benefit from it in a cost effective way stimulating the use and benefits of Inland Navigation.

The final report of PIANC WG 125 will elaborate this research and formulate guidelines useful for e.g. implementing countries, possible directives and regulations, Research & Development projects, implementation projects, etc.

4 Conclusions

One can conclude the role of RIS is still very important and focused on safety and efficiency, but faces the opportunities and challenges of new technologies and trends. RIS will be the facilitator for inland waterways to become a trustful link in a synchromodal transport network.

To be able to become such a trustful link, the first steps will be elaborated within the new PIANC RIS guidelines of 2022. It is important to know which (new) services for Inland waterways are needed to make inland navigation synchromodal ready.

Since the previous Smart Rivers in 2019, a lot of work has already been done. The progress of this work will be presented during the Smart Rivers Conference in 2022, providing the audience a good insight at the future guidelines.