Inland waterway transport: River Information Services (RIS)

The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the report by Tom Berendsen (EPP, NL) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2005/44/EC on harmonised river information services (RIS) on inland waterways in the Community.

The competent committee recommended that the European Parliament adopt its position at first reading by amending the Commission's proposal as follows.

Subject matter

According to Members, this Directive provides a framework for the establishment and further development of technical requirements, specifications and conditions to ensure harmonised, interoperable and open RIS on the Union inland waterways and facilitate continuity with other modal traffic management services, through the use of standardised interfaces.

This Directive applies to the implementation and operation of RIS on all inland waterways and inland ports of the Member States which are part of the trans-European transport network, as specified and listed in Annex I and II to Regulation (EU) No 2024/1679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network and which are directly connected to inland waterways and inland ports of another Member State, which are part of the trans-European transport network, as specified and listed in Annexes I and II of the said Regulation.

Implementation of RISs

In order to implement RIS, Member States should ensure that:

- RIS users have electronic charts suitable for navigation for all their waterways and inland ports included in the TEN-T;

- the network data in the European RIS platform are updated by providing without delay all necessary network data in accordance with Annexes I and III;

- traffic information, at a minimum, is made available to electronic information exchange systems established by Union law and used in other modes of transport by means of interfaces, respecting the technical specifications set out in Annex II, where applicable;

- standardised interfaces in accordance with Annexes II and III are made available to other smart inland navigation infrastructure systems for the purpose of river traffic management.

Electronic freight transport information (eFTI) should serve as a basis for the exchange of information on dangerous goods and waste between RIS users, where necessary. RIS should then facilitate links with the systems and platforms of other transport modes and make the information available to them.

Contributions from third countries

The RIS platform should be open to contributions from third countries whose waterways are connected to the European waterway network willing to cooperate and provide their network data, provided that the data is of identical quality and format as that of Member States. Contributing third countries should be able to use and benefit from the ERDMS and the RIS platform in the same manner as Member States, provided they adhere to the same level of cybersecurity.

Satellite positioning

For the purposes of RIS, for which exact positioning is required, Members recommended the use of navigation services provided by Galileo, including the High Accuracy Service and Open Service Navigation Message Authentication and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), as well as the applications and services relying on Earth observation data, the use of Copernicus data, information or services.

Complaints handling

Members believe that complaints handling is an important tool for defending the interests of RIS users and reporting problems, but that it is nevertheless important to avoid unnecessary administrative burdens. They therefore propose that each Member State ensure that an effective, simple and accessible procedure , building, where possible, on existing structures, is put in place to handle complaints arising from the application of the Directive.

Processing of personal data

Personal data may only be processed insofar as such processing is necessary for the performance of RIS applications, with a view to ensuring harmonised, interoperable and accessible RIS on the Union inland waterways and to facilitate standardised interfaces with other modal traffic management services.

Report

The Commission should submit, no later than 3 years after the date of entry into force, a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the potential benefits and costs of extending the scope of the Directive to inland waterways and inland ports of the Member States which are part of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) but are not covered by the Directive.