Smart, Integrated and Harmonized Waterway Management

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As an environmentally-friendly and safe transport mode, inland waterway transport (IWT) is an important enabler for economic growth and competitiveness in the Danube Region. The Danube is an international waterway with 10 riparian countries, 9 of which being responsible for waterway maintenance. For coordinated basic infrastructure quality, the transnational cooperation of national waterway authorities is crucial. Transnational harmonised smart traffic infrastructure information for an entire transport corridor (here: Danube) is an important prerequisite for public authorities in order to be capable of satisfying user needs of the commercial IWT sector. For instance, data about fairway conditions from all Danube countries will help vessel operators to optimise their voyage and transport planning, which is in most cases international. The objective of the project is to establish and maintain an efficient and environmentally friendly transportation network (Danube and its navigable tributaries) by further developing effective waterway infrastructure management. In addition to consolidating common standards and tools, the project’s results and outputs include user oriented information services. These enable rapid information transfer on the quality of the waterway’s infrastructure. On the strategic level, cooperation with stakeholders (ecology, navigation) and coordination with political level (EUSDR) are project activities. The project will consolidate the quality of waterway infrastructure and waterway maintenance, resulting in a higher utilization of waterway transport in the region. The project has many innovative elements which are part of future technologies and services (i.e. inland waterway infrastructure improvement pilots). Moreover, Danube STREAM efficiently capitalises on previous project results (i.e. SEE project NEWADA duo) to build on existing knowledge and to deploy results closely together with targeted users of the Danube waterway.

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