2. The Nautical Network Puzzle
How to build the (European) waterway network
for RIS Corridor Management
Christoph Plasil
Pittsburgh, 21. September 2017

3. Background Inland Navigation is an international business
Availability of the waterways (and info about their dimension, limitations etc.) in various countries is a prerequisite for safe navigation and voyage planning
RIS have been deployed in several countries and are usually operated and provided regionally

4. River Information Services
The four key RIS technologies provide navigation with powerful tools and information. Be it ENCs of the waterways, blockages and other limitations via NtS, vessel position information via Inland AIS or electronic reporting of cargo and voyages. Of course these are the basic technologic enablers, a lot of enhanced Services (e.g. for logistics) can be built on top of them. With good reason users expect services to work seamless. The further enhanced services are, the more they have to be linked and integrated with each other.

5. RIS enabled Corridor Management
15 Partners
13 Countries
7 Project Corridors
RIS is there, all good you might think. Well not quite because when it comes to authorities providing RIS - they usually stay within their box / their area / purely their domain.
I announced a puzzle, here it starts. To get an idea about the Nautical Network Puzzle we will have a look at Europe. Looking at the map we see 13 coloured puzzle stones being the European countries involved in the RIS COMEX project. COMEX stands for Corridor Management Execution.

6. RIS enabled Corridor Management
Fairway authorities in 13 countries join forces to overcome the borders of their area of competence
Enhanced services for route and voyage planning on wider geographical scale are being defined and implemented
Fairway information
Traffic Information
Information for logistics

7. RIS enabled Corridor Management
For voyage planning it is essential to know
where objects of relevance are located
how these objects are connected with each other
if/when the objects and links are available
RIS Index was established as repository for object reference data including a Unique Object ID (ISRS Location Code)
All RIS standards are making use of the RIS Index / are compatible with the RIS Index

8. RIS Object Reference Data
ERDMS (European Ref. Data Management System)
National Ref. DB

9. RIS Object Reference Data

10. RIS Object Reference Data

11. RIS Object Reference Data

12. The Network Puzzle RIS Index only includes ‘points’
For waterway network ‘links’ different national authorities
have their own definition of relevant basis data
might not have required information
First experience gained in CoRISMa NNDS pilot ( )
To meet the requirements of voyage planning a uniform digital Nautical Network Data Service (NNDS) is to be developed including
common definition of the physical links
already available IWT objects (RIS Index)
Identify relevant parameters for waterway links,
Agree on a common definition for waterway network data taking into account requirements of RIS and voyage planning applications
Build a waterway network model

13. CoRISMa NNDS pilot
CoRISMa – NNDS pilot

14. CoRISMa NNDS pilot
Connecting Hectometer Stones, defining the links between the objects an their characteristics
E.g. travel direction

15. CoRISMa NNDS pilot – network graph

16. Thank you for your attention!
Christoph Plasil Senior RIS expert M
Donau-City-Straße 1, 1220 Vienna