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Inland waterways vessels (IWV) have no mandatory regulations regarding their energy efficiency, as sea-going ships have. So far, there are just two proposed design energy efficiency evaluation methods, both based on IMO EEDI approach and data on EU inland navigation. Operational indicators and real-time navigation measurements from available literature do not exist. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce the energy efficiency in operation (EEO), assessed for the typical Danube cargo vessel. Firstly, an operational profile is acquired by tracking the vessel's voyages, and by identifying actual constraints of each sector the vessel has sailed during the designated time. Secondly, EEO is incorporated within two available methods and calculated based on acquired operational data considering different navigational conditions. The paper shows how the energy efficiency vastly depends on variables such as water depth, current speed, draught, deadweight, river constraints. Analysis is performed for the most employed month of the vessel navigation, and annually. Depending on water level scenarios and during the selected month of sailing, the total amount of CO2 emitted is estimated to be between 22.7 t and 29.9 t, while the necessary average speed reduction (i.e., slow steaming) per sectoral voyage for the requirement compliance is calculated to be in between 4.8%-26%. Slow steaming is assessed to extend the time of voyage for 6.1-10.7 hours on monthly basis and 49-87 hours annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vessel motion simulation as well as model-based accurate trajectory prediction of vessels require accurate models with respect to related dynamic properties. The ability to predict vessel's trajectory behaviors will become relevant in the case of future autonomous navigation of vessels to predict the behavior of others. The definition of models or parameters can be realized via first principles or by using experimental modeling methods leading to a time invariant or variant model. Existing hydrodynamical modeling approaches are based on mathematical approaches, which use parameters like mass, hydrodynamic forces, wind velocity, depth under the keel, loading parameters, etc. So, determining a dynamic vessel's model is a complex task, since the model is vessel-specific. For collision avoidance of autonomous or assisted vessels, the trajectory prediction of encountering other vessels is especially required. It is not possible to use complex hydrodynamical models of encountering vessels online due to missing required information/measurements. Even existing deep learning approaches provide better predictions, but are still insufficient for collision avoidance in the case of strong dynamical changes, since the considered input sequences are long. Due to long input sequences, the model does not adapt to strong dynamical changes. In this work, a simple parameter-based approach is developed to predict the intended behavior using the last seconds of the measured position variables. The idea is to globally identify the model parameters of the vessel, which remains constant for the situation, and additionally two parameters for local adaptation, which adapt at every updated input sequence. Typically parameters like rudder angle, wind velocities, and water current affect the behavior of vessels. The introduced approach works with a sliding window approach for which, after identification of the global system, local values are identified based on the last 80 measurements of the vessels. A trajectory prediction (assuming no additional rudder-based maneuvering) is realized for the prediction horizon of 180 s. To confirm the robustness of the new approach, real AIS/GPS-based measurements from a German research inland vessel for different scenarios and sailing conditions including 'loaded' and 'empty' sailing cases are used. Furthermore, additional results are shown for position data information of different sample rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We present an experimental study on resistance and propulsion characteristics of an inland waterway ship in confined water. Physical experiments of resistance and propulsion with an inland waterway ship were performed. The effects of water depth, separation distance to a vertical wall (bank effects) and forward speed are discussed. The objective of the investigation was to generate benchmark data for validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers. Highlights • Experimental results of resistance and propulsion tests with an inland waterway ship model in confined waters provide benchmark data for CFD. • Hydrodynamic interactions between the model and flow restrictions related to squat and bank effects were quantified. • Sensitivities to water depth and distance to the wall were found to be consistent with theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, air pollution from vessel exhaust emission is increasingly prominent. In particular, Jiangsu province, as a large inland waterway transportation province, has a large amount of ship emissions; however, the amount of such emissions remains unidentified. Considering the importance of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal for Jiangsu province and for the country, the inland vessel emission inventory of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Jiangsu province in 2014 was established using activity-based approach, the total annual emissions of particulate and gaseous pollutants were quantified, and the emission characteristics of vessels were also discussed. Dry cargo ships are the largest source of air pollutants, with ships whose gross tonnage is between 200 and 600 tons having the greatest contribution to exhaust emission. The order of the emission contribution for each vessel operation condition was as follows: normal navigation > passing through the shippinglockage > berthing > mooring. Vessels running on the fairway made the greatest contribution in the aspect of the spatial distribution. Except in February, the monthly emissions not from ships presented a relatively steady trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport time and cost are decisive factors for shippers when they choose a mode for their transport. For inland waterway transport in particular, these aspects are more uncertain and less easy to generalize than for road and rail. This is due to the highly variable waterway conditions on free-flowing rivers and due to the large variety of inland ships. Today's transport models, however, do not take these factors into account. This paper shows that dynamic fairway conditions, the ship's amount of propulsion power, and the captain's behaviour have a substantial impact on the attainable speed and fuel consumption of inland ships. This in turn has a significant impact on attainable sailing schedules and transportation cost, as we demonstrate through a case study for ships sailing on the Rhine-Danube corridor. We, therefore, conclude that there is a clear potential to improve the representation of inland waterway transport in freight models by modelling the effects of actual ship characteristics and waterway conditions at the micro-level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine (CCNR) created at its plenary session the European committee for drawing up common standards in the field of inland navigation (Cornite Europeen pour l'Elaboration de Standards dans le Domaine de Navigation Interieure - CESNI). The mission of the new body is to prepare and adopt technical standards in a variety of fields on inland navigation, and unify their standards for all EU countries. 26th November 2015 CES NI adopted the first resolution - European Standard laying down Techni­cal Requirements for Inland Navigation vessels (ES-TRIN). The document adopts in a standardised way the requirements contained in directive 2006/87 /EC and in the Rhine Vessel Inspection Regu­lations. At the moment, ES-TRIN is not binding per se, by the time it will be referred in legal frameworks EU Member States. For this paper, the most important chapters of Directive 2006/87 /EC and ES-TRIN concern engine design (chapter 8) and emissions of gaseous and particulate pollutants from diesel engines. It is worth to say that both documents has got the same regulations.

This research applied the Green Flag Program to assess the benefits of reducing speed and fuel transfer for large merchant vessels (bulk and container) entering Kaohsiung Port. This study adopts an activity-based model to calculate fuel consumption and emissions, as well as setting up two scenarios, (1) decrease vessel speed to 12 knots 20 nm away from port; and (2) decrease vessel speed to 12 knots and transfer fuel 20 nm away from port, which based on the Green Flag Program in Long Beach, in the U.S. The findings are (1) In scenario one, the container and bulk vessels saw reductions in CO 2 emissions of about 41% and 14%, respectively. In scenario two, container and bulk vessels had reductions of about 48% and 43% in SO 2 emissions, respectively. (2) Large vessels are more environmentally friendly than small vessels. (3) Using the CATCH model to assess the effectiveness of the two scenarios, it was found that container vessels benefited from both reducing speed and fuel transfer, while bulk carriers only did so from the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we discuss an attempt to build an expert system that can support decision making by analytical chemists regarding the presence of tributyltin (TBT) in inland Polish water samples in detail. It is possible to conclude with at least a 0.93 probability that a sample is free of TBT using the expert system that was constructed (if a sample is analyzed in accordance with the European norm PN-EN ISO 17353:2006). This idea, which is based on the efficient use of the information that is stored in a chromatographic database, can easily be extended to monitor other priority substances in water samples. Our on-going research, which is focused on octylphenols in water samples, has provided very encouraging results and additionally supports this hypothesis. The proposed framework can also be attractive to other testing laboratories that have a similar scope of expertise and follow the same analytical protocols. Moreover, as a natural consequence of our research further efforts should lead to the development of a ready-to-use product that would offer testing laboratories validated chromatographic libraries along with the expert system(s) with the possibility of upgrading them with respect to an increasing pool of analyzed samples. Such a solution when implemented in a testing laboratory environment may have a wide economic impact on its further functioning and increase throughput efficiency, especially in a case in which monitoring priority substances in water is a major concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trajectory of the inland waterway ship is important and useful in analysing the features of the ship behaviour and simulating traffic flows. In the proposed research, a method is designed to restore the trajectory of an inland waterway ship based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Firstly, three rules are developed to identify and remove the inaccurate data, based on the reception range of the received AIS data and the manoeuvring characteristics of the inland waterway ship. Secondly, the method of restoring the full trajectory incorporating navigational features of the inland waterway ship is proposed to model the ship trajectory. The trajectory is characterised by three types (line, curve and arc) and five steps (line, curve, arc, curve and line) during the turning section. In order to validate the proposed method, the AIS data of two inland waterway ships collected from three AIS-base-stations is selected for the analysis, all inaccurate AIS data is identified and removed by the use of three cleansing rules. The results show that the three developed rules can effectively identify the inaccurate AIS data. The AIS data collected by an AIS-shipboard-unit is then used to: (1) restore the ship trajectory, and (2) validate the proposed method by comparing the reconstituted trajectories with the actual trajectory. This actual trajectory is determined from intermediate higher frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) data and collected from the AIS-shipboard-unit. The residual errors are calculated as the differences between the estimated latitude values of the restored trajectory functions and the real latitude values of the GPS data. Three alternative methods of trajectory restoring are also evaluated. The results show that the proposed method can be used to restore the full trajectory in an effective manner by using AIS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scientific attention in port studies centers on deep-sea ports, in particular container ports. In our paper, in contrast, we focus our attention on the characteristics of inland waterway ports in a European context. This is an overlooked part in the scientific literature on inland port development, which is up to now mainly concerned with US-based understandings of inland ports. We try to broaden the application of the inland port concept by explaining the development of inland ports in terms of inland waterway bounded cargo throughput. Based on a large-scale quantitative dataset of inland port development in Dutch municipalities we perform various statistical analyses to arrive at a more detailed understanding of the question: What are the characteristics of European inland waterway ports and what transport and economic factors influence cargo throughput on the municipal level? The results in particular highlight the importance of the presence of a container terminal, the diversity in types of goods which are being handled by the inland port and the accessibility of the inland port relative to the regional motorway network as important factors in explaining the size and growth of inland ports. Interestingly, the popular claim in policy of ‘investments in inland port development leading to employment growth’ cannot be confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future climate conditions are likely to affect inland waterway transport in Europe. According to some climate scenarios, in summer, in the river Rhine, periods with low water levels are likely to occur more often and become more serious. Then inland waterway transport carriers will experience more severe restrictions on the load factor of their inland ships, which implies a stronger reduction in transport capacity in the market. Transport prices will rise under such conditions. Some studies reviewed in this paper find that at extremely low water levels, the price per tonne for inland waterway transport in the river Rhine area will almost double. These increased transport prices result in welfare losses. For the dry summer in 2003, the losses for North West Europe are estimated to sum up to around €480 million. Increased transport prices trigger adaptation. Inland waterway carriers may use smaller vessels, and shippers have the opportunity to shift from inland waterway transport to alternative transport modes in periods with low water levels. This effect is probably rather modest, however, with a modal shift to road and rail smaller than 10 %. Also, changes in transport costs may lead to relocation of certain economic activities in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoration projects often aim to initiate side erosion processes in order to improve the ecological situation, leading to banks of gentle slopes which positively affect biotic habitats. However, within navigable reaches such measures have to be planned under consideration of the impact of vessel-generated waves on YOY-fish. Hence an extensive study was conducted at different bank types to analyze and describe waves, induced by passing vessels. A high resolution wave gauge was exposed, to obtain wave data of different vessel types over a broad discharge range. Simultaneously vessel passage was recorded using an automatic identification system. Attributed to the ships, different wave types could be distinguished and their specific parameters (e.g., wave height) were described. Additionally we analyzed by which of these parameters wave height is primarily affected. For passenger ships a speed reduction of 5 km h results in a reduction of wave height of 14 cm at the Danube. A morphological analysis was accomplished to identify habitat loss and shift of the water's edge based on ship induced maximum drawdown. Habitat loss, expressed as retrogression of the water's edge, ranged between 0.88 and 35 m for the highest drawdown recorded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reconstruction of the inland waterway fleets of the two German states after the Second World War was characterized by two very different strategies. Whereas West German shipping companies followed an evolutionary approach based on the developments of the interwar period—notably the steady increase in cargo capacity and the introduction of motor ships—the shipping on the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) state-owned inland waterway developed through the introduction of the pushed-two system, a completely different—and possibly revolutionary—approach. These differing concepts were, on the one hand, a consequence of the physical character of the waterways themselves, with long rivers serving as the main axes of West Germany’s inland waterways, while in the East there was a complex system of small canals around Berlin. On the other hand, the different approaches reflected the contrasting socioeconomic systems in the two states. The socialistic system in the East developed the modular pushed-tow system not only because it guaranteed an optimal use of the fleet under the conditions of a socialistic economy, but also because it enabled the GDR to introduce a socialistic labor regime to the inland waterway transportation sector. The crews of the push boats in the East were no longer travelling people like their fellow inland waterway mariners in the West, but became socialistic workers. However, despite the initial success of the pushed-tow system in the East, it soon became outdated as the socialistic system fostered the introduction of a revolutionary new fleet, but did not provide a base for continuous development and innovation. The evolutionary approach of the West German shipping companies may have been slow initially, but it ultimately formed a base for economic and technological success, as permanent innovation was central to its development. With the collapse of the GDR and the so-called re-unification of Germany, the push boat fleet became obsolete as the modular pushed-tow system of the GDR inland waterway fleet could not adapt to the new economic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Ship collision is a major type of accident in waterway transportation, with considerable annual occurrence that always causes serious casualty. Among the evidences that can facilitate the investigation, AIS data recorded during the context of the collision are highly informative. This paper exploits the contextual AIS data in a coupled spatial–temporal perspective. With the discrete waypoints specified by the AIS data, the trajectories of the colliding ships are regenerated with three reasoning respects: (1) the conflict-resolution envisioned by each ship in the collision-inducing scenario when the two ships are drawing near; (2) to what extent the two ships can make situation assessment and the de facto maneuvers exerted to steer the ships; (3) how to evaluate the decision quality of the steering process and how to measure the consistency between the subjective endeavors and the objective results in the context of bilateral anti-collision maneuvers. According to the periodical nature of the AIS data, time is slotted into slices to make temporal analysis and to sketch out the decision sequences made by both ships. Fuzzy set method is adopted to estimate the quality of the decisions, and a Dempster–Shafer Theory (DST) based method is employed to fuse the discernment in time domain and in spatial domain, so that an overall impact of the behavior of both ships can be calculated. The current paper presents a microscopic analytical scheme for a two-vessel collision accident investigation, and the proposed scheme may be heuristic to yield a generalized result for a multi-vessel case. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract  The safety of inland passenger vessels operating in Bangladesh has been investigated. By thorough analysis of past accident data, the main causes of intact stability failures have been determined: adverse weather conditions and overloading, likely resulting in crowding to one side. Historical series of wind data were gathered and their analysis suggests that an increase in the wind speed presently used in the Weather Criterion in force in Bangladesh could be advisable. A model of a small passenger ship typically operated in Bangladesh has been analyzed in order to identify the most relevant hazards under intact ship conditions. A strongly jeopardizing effect of overloading under intact ship conditions has been detected when analyzing the hazard from the crowding of people to one side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  On the basis of previous studies, a series of hazards involving the typical small inland passenger ferries operating in inland Bangladeshi waters have been identified. In particular, stormy weather conditions, overloading, and the risk of crowding to one side have been determined as the typical events that are likely to lead to capsizing in the intact condition. In this article, possible hazard mitigation measures are discussed, both from the regulatory and from the design point of view, for a small inland ferry that is very similar to one that actually capsized in the past. The addressed design options involve ballasting and hull modification by means of additional buoyancy above the waterline. From a regulatory point of view, it is proposed that the present weather criterion in force in Bangladesh be modified by increasing the wind speed to be accounted for and by considering the concurrent effects of wind, rolling, and the crowding of people to one side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flow around an inland waterway vessel in shallow water was computed in model scale using CFD software Fluent. Theoretical data were compared to the results of measurements in towing tank. The comparison comprises ship resistance, wave profile on hull surface, and distribution of velocity in flow around bow and stern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the rules for safety at work on inland waterway vessels with electrical plants supplied from external high voltage (HV) source of electrical power of over 1 kV. This is a novelty concerning exploitation in gravel pits, where voltage up to 0.4 kV is usually used. Some general notes on three different types of dredgers (grab dredgers, suction dredgers and bucket dredgers) under supervision of the Croatian Register of Shipping (CRS) that are used for dredging inland waters in Croatia are given. There are five floating grab dredgers (all of them of the same design) under supervision of the CRS. A description of the technological design of the floating grab dredgers is given. Then the ways of dredgers' HV power supply from external source and respective rules and regulations in force are considered. Also, the present and the former state of HV electrical plants on vessels (for both sea and inland navigation) under supervision of the CRS is considered. Three grab dredgers with characteristic but different power supply and the design of HV electrical plant are presented. In addition a detailed description of HV cable is given, including cable design, selection, and laying. Also, some information related to the design and calculation of protective earthing is provided. Then essential safety at work measures and technical precautions for the crew and special personnel on the dredger in operation or out of operation with no load alive voltage HV cable are considered. It is underlined in the conclusion that competent Croatian institutions should prescribe relevant rules and make internal regulations for each particular vessel related to the safety of work and stay on inland waterway vessels with HV electrical plants power supplied from external sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]