Gianluca Vezzani
Transport & Infrastructure Senior Business Development Manager, RINA
"This Global Project for the development of the Northern Italy Waterway System, and its multimodal interconnection with existing road and rail axis of European importance is expected to support the improvement of the industrial development of the area surrounding the Po Valley and the increased competitiveness of inland navigation."
The main objective of the Italian RIS (River Information Services) initiatives is to create the conditions for a better and smoother use of the Italian inland waterway, increasing the efficiency and the safety of navigation, and aligning, simultaneously, the community of users and institutions through a sharing of information easily accessible. In order to reach this goal, a full operational RIS System is required to cover the entire Northern Italy Waterway System and to offer advanced technological features to provide the conditions for optimal use of River Po and connected channels.
RINA has assisted Sistemi Territoriali S.p.A. (an in-house company of the Veneto Region) in coordinating the project to ensure that it is effectively and efficiently managed and that all technical tasks, administrative and financial duties are carried out in full compliance with contractual requirements. Moreover, RINA conducted a harmonization study to review the organization of the reporting in the inland waterway, and to standardize the format and structure as by maritime Directive 2010/65/EU.
The RIS-Italy Project has mainly led to full extension of AIS/Radio coverage of entire Northern Italy Waterway System, implementation of bathymetric data into the Inland Electronic Navigational Charts (IENC) installed onboard, development of a mobile application to make all RIS features available on smartphones or tablets, and implementation of communication link between maritime and inland systems for mutual exchange of AIS data in the areas of interest.
