Inland waterway transport: River Information Services (RIS)

The European Parliament adopted by 636 votes to 10, with 4 abstentions, a legislative resolution 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.

Parliament adopted its position at first reading by amending the Commission's proposal as follows.

Subject matter

The Directive:

- establishes a framework for the deployment and use of harmonised river information services (RIS) in the Union in order to support inland waterway transport with a view to enhancing its safety, efficiency and sustainability and to facilitating interfaces with other transport modes;

- provides a framework for the establishment and further development of technical requirements, specifications and conditions to ensure harmonised, interoperable and accessible RIS on inland waterways in the Union and to facilitate continuity with traffic management services of other transport modes through the use of standardised interfaces.

The Directive applies to the implementation and operation of RIS on all inland waterways and inland ports of the Member States that form part of the trans‑European transport network, as specified and listed in Annexes I and II to Regulation (EU) 2024/1679 and that are directly connected to inland waterways and inland ports of another Member State that form part of the trans-European transport network, as specified and listed in those Annexes.

Setting-up of RIS

To set up RIS, Member States will:

- ensure that network data in the European RIS environment is kept up to date by providing all necessary network data without delay;

- ensure that, where available, traffic information is, at a minimum, made available to electronic information exchange systems established by Union law and used in other modes of transport by means of interfaces, in compliance with certain technical specifications;

- ensure that standardised interfaces are made available to (i) inland ports' port community systems, including, where appropriate, up-to-date information on the availability of berths and alternative fuel infrastructure; (ii) other intelligent inland navigation infrastructure systems for the purpose of traffic management on inland waterways.

European RIS environment

Member States will jointly create, govern, operate, use and maintain a European RIS Environment that provides fairway, infrastructure, traffic, and transport-related services, and will provide the necessary data. The European RIS Environment will allow for the possibility of contributions from third countries whose waterways are connected to the European inland waterway network and which are willing to cooperate and provide their network data, provided that the data are of identical quality and format to that of Member States and that they adhere to the same level of cybersecurity and data protection.

Satellite positioning

For the purposes of RIS, for which exact positioning is required, the amended text recommends the use of navigation services provided by Galileo, including the high-accuracy service and the self-service navigation message authentication service, of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS ), as well as the use of Copernicus data, information or services for applications and services based on Earth observation data.

Feedback mechanism

Each Member State will ensure that an effective, simple and accessible procedure is in place, building, where possible, on existing structures, to handle feedback from RIS users arising from the application of this Directive. The European RIS Environment will inform the Commission, on an annual basis, of the amount of feedback received and of the way that the feedback was handled.

Processing of personal data

Data that constitute personal data may be processed on the basis of this Directive only insofar as such processing is necessary for the operation of RIS applications, with a view to ensuring harmonised, interoperable and accessible RIS on inland waterways in the Union and to facilitating standardised interfaces with traffic management services of other transport modes.

The amended text finally underlines that, in view of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, cooperation between the Union and Russia in the field of RIS is neither appropriate nor in the interest of the Union. As a consequence, cross-border cooperation on RIS with Russia is no longer a priority on the territory of the Member States.