Cargo river barge – Photo by Val Bond on Unsplash
(BRUSSELS) – The European Commission adopted a proposal Monday to improve the efficiency and reliability of traffic management on Europe’s rivers and canals such as the Danube and the Rhine.
The measure continues EU efforts to shift more cargo to Europe’s inland waterways, in line with the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ and its ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy’.
“Modern river information services will help barge operators and skippers to better and more easily exchange with port operators and authorities to better plan and execute their voyages,” said Transport Commissioner Adina Valea: “In turn, this will help further integrating inland waterways transport within modern logistics processes and multimodal chains.”
The proposal updates an existing EU directive on river information services (RIS), including provisions on traffic information and management, on information on the condition of waterways and infrastructure, on voyage planning for skippers, and on reporting to the relevant authorities. RIS is provided on around 13,000 km of interconnected waterways across 12 EU Member States.
The 2005 directive had a positive impact on harmonising these information services across the EU. It now needs modernising to take into account lessons learnt from implementation, and to ensure it is fit for current and future challenges, such as further digitalisation, demands on efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness, and modal shift.
The new proposal provides a framework for RIS deployment and provisions, and seeks to ensure that data is available and technical specifications are harmonised and delivers on a clear expectation from the inland waterways transport sector.
