Inland waterway network mapping of AIS data for freight transportation planning

Travel demand models (TDMs) with freight forecasts estimate performance metrics for competing infrastructure investments and potential policy changes. Unfortunately, freight TDMs fail to represent non-truck modes with levels of detail adequate for multi-modal infrastructure and policy evaluation. Recent expansions in the availability of maritime movement data, i.e. Automatic Identification System (AIS), make it possible to expand and improve representation of maritime modes within freight TDMs. AIS may be used to track vessel locations as timestamped latitude–longitude points. For estimation, calibration and validation of freight TDMs, this work identifies vessel trips by applying network mapping (map-matching) heuristics to AIS data. The automated methods are evaluated on a 747-mile inland waterway network, with AIS data representing 88% of vessel activity. Inspection of 3820 AIS trajectories was used to train the heuristic parameters including stop time, duration and location. Validation shows 84⋅0% accuracy in detecting stops at ports and 83⋅5% accuracy in identifying trips crossing locks. The resulting map-matched vessel trips may be applied to generate origin–destination matrices, calculate time impedances, etc. The proposed methods are transferable to waterways or maritime port systems, as AIS continues to grow.

Freight Distribution Analysis and Modelling of Inland Waterway Transport along the Yangtze River Economic Belt using Big Data

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) serves as the main east-west axis of China to promote economic development and environmental protection along the Yangtze River. This paper analyses the factors that affect the freight distribution of major types of cargo transported through the Yangtze River, using data from the automatic identification system (AIS) and ship visa data. First, a set of freight impedance functions are developed for different types of links of the waterway network, by considering a number of factors such as cargo types, delays at ship locks, water levels and flows at different waterway segments and upstream and downstream shipping speeds. Both the distance- and time-based impedance matrices of different types of cargo are computed, respectively. After that, gravity model (GM) and intervening opportunity model (IOM) are estimated to simulate the distribution of different types of cargo based on the computed impedance matrices. Meanwhile, a trip length distribution (TLD) method is applied to validate the estimated distribution models. The results indicate that GM with a power term outperforms other models, and the time-based models are superior to the distance-based ones for the prediction of freight distributions over large geographies like the YREB. This work offers an in-depth understanding of the freight characteristics of inland waterways and therefore it should be helpful for relevant authorities in formulating their port and inland waterway plans and policies.

Factor analysis of cargo river transportation recovery on the Unified deep-water system of Russia

In the second half of the XX century, Russian river transport was actively developing, and by 1990 the volume of cargo transportation reached 580 million tons. Now in the 20s of the XXI century, the volume of river traffic has decreased almost fivefold. There has been a redistribution of transportation between modes of transport: the shares of rail and river modes of transport have decreased, the shares of road and pipeline have increased. From the point of view of public interests, the existing distribution of traffic between modes of transport is not rational. The volume of production in the economy of the Russian Federation has fully recovered, but the growth of river traffic does not occur due to the redistribution of traffic between other modes of transport. The article discusses the reasons for a significant decrease in the share of river transport in the total volume of transport services and suggests measures to restore the position of inland waterway transport.

ПРОКУРОРСКИЙ НАДЗОР В СФЕРЕ ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЯ ПОЖАРНОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ НА МОРСКОМ И ВНУТРЕННЕМ ВОДНОМ ТРАНСПОРТЕ

The article discusses the current problems of prosecutorial supervision in the field of fire safety in maritime and inland waterway transport. Despite sufficient independence, the existence of a hierarchical, strictly subordinate system of executive authorities and supervisory powers, the federal state fire supervision bodies are the object of prosecutorial supervision.

DIRECTIONS FOR UPDATING THE ADMINISTRATION OF ACTIVITIES ON INLAND WATERWAYS OF UKRAINE

Based on historical development, the article identifies prospects for updating the modern organizational and legal support of inland waterway management in Ukraine. The relevance of the research topic is due to the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Inland Water Transport” and the absence of certain public institutions that carry out state regulation in the field of transport. According to the author, this slows down the effectiveness of the new Law implementation and worsens the state of updated industrial legislation development. It is noted that the creation of the regulation effective system and management of activities on inland waterways is the significant aspect of further development of the industry. The task of the article is to develop suggestions for improving the legal regulation of inland waterway management in Ukraine for the transition period. The author identifies the genesis of legal standards of inland waterway management based on the use of methods of historicism, formal-legal analysis and synthesis, as well as scientific forecasting. Their predominant focus on the vectors of public (state) influence formulation, the spread of coastal states’ power to activities on rivers and the lack of attention to the self-governing functions of private maritime traffic entities. The importance of forces and means of regulation/management balance maintaining for the formation of the effective impact on the relationship that develops during transportation by inland waterways is underlined. Emphasis is given to the fact that the development of river transport is impossible without the important role of the state and its bodies and the secondary, auxiliary role of associations of economic entities and public entities to ensure the operational impact on crisis situations. It is suggested to form self-governing institutions that are directly involved in maritime traffic and other uses of inland river connections, and to ensure their stable cooperation with government agencies for the best possible regulation of the industry.

Logistics of Goods Transited through the Romanian Inland Harbors

This work presents some relevant data regarding the amount of goods that have been transported inside the European Union borders using the inland waterway transport. There are also presented the goods quantities that were transited the Romanian harbours in the last years. In accordance with the Eurostat inland waterways freight transport report for the 2016-2019 period, the Romanian market was estimated in 2019 at the approximate value of over 33.200 thousand tones, which situated Romania on the 5th position among the European states. More, this quantity represented a total increase of 11.9% reported to the previous year. The biggest quantities of transited goods are represented by cereals, then crude mineral products and then oil and gas products.