Inland waterway transport: River Information Services (RIS)

(I) efficiency of navigation and traffic management • More flexible and smoother procedure of technical standards adoption and subsequent adaptation is required. To this end, we fully support the idea to involve a dedicated standardization body such as CESNI. It should be organized in a way that enables faster updates of RIS standards when required.

Updating the RIS Directive is very timely in terms of tracking the evolution and current state of RIS. We achieved many results, but these were mainly used by the authorities. Now we have to turn our focus towards the sector. They need much more harmonisation which was one of the goals of the first directive. Due to the lack of the harmonisation, the benefits of RIS are not currently being enjoyed by the industry.

Waterborne Transport Departmenr of Ministry of Transport fo the Czech Republic agrees with the need to rvevise the current Directive 2005/44/EU on Harmonised River Information Services. The Inception Impact Assessments published by EC intends to enable further significant steps in order to enhance the inclusion of IWT to European logistic transport chains. In this view we would like to highlight following aspects.

Waterways Directorate of the Czech Republic strongly support an iniciative for revision of RIS Directive. All topics mentioned in the published Inception Impact Assessments are relevant and in the case of its implementation would provide a significant step forward to stronger position of inland navigation in the European transport market.

Feedback on the Inception Impact Assessment (Roadmap) for the revision of Directive 2005/44/EC By the Netherlands The Netherlands would like to express their appreciation for taking the initiative to consider an update of Directive 2005/44/EC.

The "study supporting the evaluation of Directive 2005/44/EC on Harmonised River Information Services (RIS)" highlighted the limitations of the current mechanism for updating the technical specifications necessary for RIS standards.

Voies navigables de France (VNF) is operating inland waterways (IWW) in France. It welcomes the Commission’s inception impact assessment on the revision of the River Information Service (RIS) Directive, which will allow the growing digitalisation and modernisation of inland waterways.

We truly appreciate the efforts which were made until today. It is also great to see, that logistics and with it, river shipping has a certain focus from the policy makers. There are great objectives in this initiative, as the involvement of CESNI or the information sharing between cross border operations. However, we are in the opinion, that voyage planning, estimation of arrival times, etc.

The European Barge Union (EBU) is pleased to provide input to the consultation on the IIA. In 2021, an evaluation of the Directive found that a full harmonisation and interoperability of RIS has not been achieved yet, which is shared by our previous findings as submitted to the consultation on that evaluation. RIS provides important information and support to the Inland Waterway Transport (IWT).

Our authority welcomes the initiative to reshape the foundations of the harmonised inland navigation RIS services. In this respect, it is desirable to consider RIS services not only for inland waterway transport, but also to extend them to all future interfaces with other transport and transport modes.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

The Swiss Rhine ports welcome all efforts to shape the basic principles of RIS in inland navigation in a forward-looking way. The mistakes of other modes of transport should be avoided. For all the benefits of efficient, digitalised inland navigation, the level of return to a manual functioning inland navigation should also be forgotten, and people who are working with it should not be forgotten.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

On behalf of EBU, ESO and EU Inland Waterway Transport Platform The RIS-concept ( if you wish) is indeed very powerful; a pity that it did not deliver yet according to the initial expectations. When developed further and exploited fully it will be a key contributor to IWT's objectives as set out in DINA, Green Deal, Modal Shift. Any action to improve RIS and its implementation is most welcome.

FEEDBACK ON ROADMAP ON REVISION OF RIS The revision of the RIS-Directive is very much appreciated. While the initial focus of RIS was an increase in safety and efficiency, the overall objective of RIS should evolve to also include transparency, reliability and delivering a contribution to synchromodal, resilient and climate-neutral transport.

This summer the flood disasters in the West of Europe and fire disasters in the South painfully generated awareness of changes in the climate. Transport contributes significantly to these changes. The EU Commission’s Green Deal and the mobility strategy define targets to limit this development.

The content of the 'inception impact assessment' is much appreciated. The problems under A, that are being addressed, are all relevant, and objectives and policy options under B seem to be complete. Under B 4 it is mentioned to minimize cross-border inefficiencies due to differences in Member States’ legal reporting obligations.

I still have a very good feeling with respect to the formalisation of the RIS directive in 2005 and the developments and implementation of the RIS key technologies and the steps that have been made in Europe on the operationalisation of the RIS Services. But implementation of RIS is not ready and I really appreciate the next steps as proposed by the European Commission.

The review process of the RIS Directive is very much welcome of Pro Danube International, and the same time it is considered as utmost important as well! This is due to the fact that the directive itself was/is a major step in digitalisation in inland waterway transport, however, not all the objectives have been met so far: (i) the traffic management side is well developed all over Europe with benefits mostly for…

The content of the 'inception impact assessment' is generally greeted with much appreciation! The problems under A, that are being addressed, are all relevant, and objectives and policy options under B seem to be complete. However, under C I have second thoughts about the 'Likeyy social impacts', more in particular point 8.