Towards the next generation of River Information Services (RIS)

Since their introduction with the passing of the RIS-Directive in 2005, numerous small and large incremental improvements and additions have turned River Information Services (RIS) into a powerful and valuable toolset. However, this evolutionary development has led to numerous shortcomings and thus impediments, which are likely to hinder the seamless integration of RIS into existing or emerging digital workflows and thus put uptake in the logistics sector at risk. Recently, several European projects have been addressing the question of what technological and functional requirements will exist in the future and what the next generation of RIS might look like. One of these is the Horizon 2020 project "IW-NET", which aims to develop and test innovative technologies for inland navigation.

River Information Services - A European ICT story

With the passing of the RIS-Directive 2005/44/EC on harmonised river information services on the EU’s inland waterways in 2005, the EU has required its member states to implement a set of core information technologies for inland navigation. The term “River Information Services” (RIS) refers to the concept of information services in inland navigation that support traffic and transport management, including interfaces with other modes of transport. As such, RIS are expected to improve safety, efficiency, and the environmental friendliness of inland navigation. The EU has taken a holistic approach that encompasses a legal framework, technical guidelines for planning and implementing as well as technical specifications.

Figure 1: RIS legal framework based on (Schlewing)

The RIS Directive defines four key technologies that are the result of joint efforts towards a common specification. This includes:

Notices to Skippers (NtS)
Electronic Reporting International (ERI)
Vessel Tracking and Tracing (VTT)
Inland Electronic Chart Display and Information System (Inland ECDIS)

The technical specifications to these key technologies have been developed by the European RIS expert groups and have been adopted by the European Commission into a set of Directives and Regulations (CESNI, 2021b). These efforts are now continued under the umbrella of the information technologies working group of CESNI (Comité européen pour l’élaboration de standards dans le domaine de la navigation intérieure), which is the European Committee for drawing up standards in the field of inland shipping. This working group is engaged in the drafting of proposals for the development and revision of technical standards in the context of RIS, in the promotion of the proper implementation of RIS standards as well as in the support of policy initiatives regarding digital instruments in inland navigation and the gradual introduction of electronic documents through the advice and analysis of the relevant standards (CESNI, 2021c).

Impediments to the use or exchange of data provided by current RIS implementations

While the current set of RIS certainly provides a valuable tool set for the inland navigation sector, recent investigations such as the DINA study commissioned by the European Union have revealed significant shortcomings of the current implementations. As such, it is claimed that limited data sharing functionalities for continuous and regulated data exchange (esp. in a machine-to-machine manner), lack of real-time information on traffic conditions (bridges, locks, berth allocation) as well as limited system integration between barge operators and logistics stakeholders definitely exist. The analysis concludes that the current status is a substantial hindrance to improving IWT competitiveness. (Punter & Hofman, 2017). In 2021, the CESNI-TI working group carried out a hearing that was intended to identify gaps in the existing standards and to seek for opportunities to the future use of RIS. The IW-NET project has contributed to this discussion by outlining impediments of current RIS standards to the use and exchange of data.

Fragmentation of Technical Standards across Systems

The four core RIS services (VTT, ERI, NtS & ECDIS) all serve their specific purposes. As such, they are designed to fulfil individual requirements in the best possible way. However, next to their primary function, the information contained within these services, combined with the accompanying reference data, can offer tremendous added value to the logistics sector. Unfortunately, the information available in RIS is currently distributed over a large variety of systems, operated by individual member states, encoded in different formats with varying access methods and service levels.

The formats range from simple structured text files (CSV) like the RIS index, EDIFACT messages such as the RIS ERINOT to XML structured files used in NtS. The different access methods are similarly heterogeneous, ranging from a password-protected downloads (RIS index), over traditional file-transfer protocols to http-based SOAP services.

In addition, information is distributed by a number national authorities via proprietary services, which are currently not covered by any of the standards. These range in content, scope and format. Some examples are the Open Data APIs offered by viadonau in Austria, the WADABA-API operated by WSV in Germany or the Data Distributie Laag provided by the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat.

Some examples are shown in Table 1:

Table 1: Extended User-Centric RIS – relevant service

This fragmentation leads to increased technological & organisational efforts when trying to integrate available data into new digital workflows of logistical stakeholders. Hence, the potentials of value-added services that are built upon low-level RIS services are far from being fully utilized.

Limitations in the Availability of RIS

Another aspect that impedes the uptake of RIS for value-added logistics applications is the geographical scope of certain RIS components. Especially in the case of smaller waterways, the available level of RIS components often proves to be deficient. For example, a major part of services for corridor management as proposed by the RISCOMEX-project for the VisuRIS/EURIS platform are (currently) planned to be limited to “major” corridors such as the Rhine and the Danube. These corridors do indeed account for a significant proportion of volumes transported via inland waterways. However, especially the smaller corridors bear tremendous potential because they enable logistics service providers to extend their waterborne transport chain closer to the final destination, for example to urban logistics hubs.

Another limiting factor is the fact that often there is no or limited RIS coverage on maritime waterways which are used by inland vessels. This becomes especially apparent in IWT based hinterland transports from numerous seaports. While certain technologies such as AIS and Inland ECDIS are inter-operable between maritime and inland waterways, many value-added services, such as AIS land-stations, NtS or the reference data, are simply not available to IWT operators and their planning department in the back-office.

These blind spots are likely to reduce the acceptance of new digital workflows in the IWT community. A digital service that is not reliable or does not cover the entire region of operation is bound to be replaced by services that do. IW-NET proposes to put greater attention to establishing a common level of RIS coverage to all waterways navigated by IWT with reliable service levels.

Missing Accepted RIS-Framework for Port Call Procedures

Besides ensuring safe and efficient traffic flows, RIS also aims at reducing the administrative burden of IWT logistics stakeholders. The RIS-ERI system is currently the standard for digital reporting procedures in IWT and has been an important step towards digitalizing reporting requirements in IWT, even though it might be considered technologically outdated.

Its main drawback is the missing interconnection with reporting requirements in the ports, which are typically governed by local port authorities that are usually not the same authorities who act as RIS providers (on a national or regional level). As a result, the reporting requirements, as well as the reporting methods (manual/digital), differ from port to port, while a considerable amount of information is already covered by the ERI requirements, often filled in manually. Consequently, the variety of digital but still locally applicable solutions imposes an extra burden towards IWT operators.

Ways towards the next generation of RIS

Ongoing projects and investigations stress the need towards a more user-centric approach towards future RIS concepts and implementations. Based on international expert surveys carried out in the IW-NET project with different stakeholders in the IWT landscape, it has been observed, that especially the need for seamless integration into third party system, context-sensitive access mechanisms as well real-time and predictive information for voyage planning represent important industry needs.

A technical concept to approach these needs is the implementation of a Unified API (application programming interface) that represents an abstraction layer and serves as a single access point to multiple services and data services.Unification or harmonisation will be achieved with regard to the existing individual differences in data formats and versions, protocols as well as geographic service partitioning. As illustrated in Figure 2, the main objective from the API consumer perspective is to provide a RESTful client service for all kinds of RIS related services and data sources.

Figure 2: Unified API Schema

A unified API not only facilitates integration into third party systems but allows for better sharing of real-time information. To avoid information overload, flexible Publish & Subscribe mechanism for dynamic RIS data will allow stakeholders to receive the tailor-made information packages required in their business processes. An example concerns the provision of NtS data only relevant to a specific voyage rather than generally subscribing and collecting NtS from various websites and sources without a clear use case.

In summary, it has been shown that unified access to third party systems offers great opportunities for better utilization of RIS for the transport and logistics by means of existing technologies. The expected technological disruptions of the next decade suggest that the story of the development of RIS is far from being told. For example, autonomous barges and automated cargo handling operations will place many more demands with respect to the quantity, speed and timeliness of digital data exchange.

Highlights

Visualization of RIS legal framework
Summary of impediments to the use or exchange of data provided for in the various RIS standards
Technological concept for harmonized and user-centric provision of RIS

References

European Commission. (2017). Digital Inland Waterway Area: Towards a Digital Inland Waterway Area and Digital Multimodal Nodes. Von https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/default/files/studies/2017-10-dina.pdf abgerufen

CESNI. (2021b). River Information Services. Von https://ris.cesni.eu/30-en.html abgerufen

CESNI. (2021c). Information Technologies (TI). Retrieved from Information Technologies (TI): https://www.cesni.eu/en/information-technologies/

Punter, L., & Hofman, W. (2017). Digital Inland Waterway Area: Towards a Digital Inland Waterway Area .

Schlewing, A. (2011). River Information Services (RIS) - Multi-Annual Call 2011. Von https://ec.europa.eu/inea/sites/default/files/download/events/infoday2011/presentations/4schlewing_tent_2011_info_day_ris.pdf abgerufen