ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Waterways are part of the trans-European transport network allowing a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly transport of passengers and goods. For managing the waterway Danube providing a sufficient level of reliability and availability a waterway asset management system (WAMS) has been established in Austria since 2015. Currently this software tool contains all necessary information on physical fairway availability providing the waterway agency viadonau with the means for an efficient planning and implementation of measures from dredging to fairway alignment. The current research project aims at implementing actual vessel traffic information and fairway utilization in the planning process. To achieve this goal anonymized transponder data with vessel trajectories, vessel type and draught loads are collected automatically in the WAMS – database. With a grid-based counting algorithm traffic flow and density are analyzed for one and two-way traffic during high and low water periods. The WAMS – tool is capable of generating heat maps and cross-sectional traffic distribution charts allowing for a comparison between provided fairway path and availability with actual utilization. Larger counting cells around ports and berths enable further analysis regarding site importance and length of stay. Further developments will also include a search option for optimal fairway alignment based on curve radii and fairway depth. This functionality will also be a good basis for a future route planner for an optimization of vessel loading and estimation of expected transport costs. The paper gives an insight into the WAMS system with focus on methodical aspects and actual findings of vessel traffic analysis as basis for a customer-oriented fairway optimization and an efficient use of funds. After implementation and testing of these new functionalities selected features and automatically updated results will be made available for the public in River Information Systems (RIS), navigational charts and notes to skippers.
