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M. Hoffmann, K. Haselbauer, R. Blab, T. Hartl:
"Feasibility Study for a Waterway Maintenance Management System (WMMS) for the Danube";
Report for South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme; 2014; 125 pages.

Economic development shows a strong correlation to transport volume with stable growth rates before and after the financial and economic crisis of 2009. In Europe's growing transport market inland navigation - including transport on the Danube - is slightly loosing its modal share with only a fraction of the available infrastructure capacity being used. Apart from over-aging structures, vessel fleet and low continuous fairway availability, the international Danube waterway is limited in its development by a resource patchwork and a number of physical, legal and administrative barriers. Due to economic and political reasons as well as a lack of funding the conditions for inland navigation especially on the lower Danube have suffered leading to substantial losses in transport volume during the last five years. The analysis conducted in this study clearly showed that one of the most critical factors is providing sufficient fairway depths throughout the year together with accurate and reliable information on current waterway conditions for the users of this traffic route. In low-water periods one single section with insufficient fairway depths will lead to a low utilization of the entire vessel fleet on the transport route. Stated national fairway availabilities are showing large deviations and are in general below agreed standards. Despite considerable efforts in a majority of Danube riparian countries, necessary maintenance measures have not been conducted due to a lack of common methods, approaches and sufficient budgets. The research results indicate that only a real political commitment followed by concerted actions of all waterway authorities and stakeholders under a common strategy and asset management approach will lead to efficient investments and an enhanced infrastructure quality and availability.
Up to date such approaches have already been implemented for road and rail infrastructure but are still missing on inland waterways. For this study this lead to the question of how the feasibility of implementing a Waterway Maintenance Management System (WMMS) may be assessed. However, just recently such an approach has been developed and is currently being implemented in a software tool with an application for the Danube in Austria by via donau. This Waterway Asset Management System (WAMS) covers all aspects from riverbed surveying and availability calculation to planning and optimization of maintenance measures up to an assessment of budgeting needs for different levels of service. The overview provided in this study on both the approach and first results in Austria may be seen as evidence for a principal feasibility of such a WMMS leading to the question for the subsequent needs for a successful implementation on the entire Danube. This feasibility study provides a needs assessment for several options ranging from a basic WMMS set-up up to a fully functional WMMS including additional resources for riverbed surveying, gauging stations, operation and maintenance measures as well as sufficient budgets. Continuing with the "status quo" in waterway maintenance will not lead to satisfactory results compared to possible benefits of previously mentioned options with possible benefits outweighting costs and increasing with every step towards a full WMMS implementation.
With the main goal of enabling competitive and sustainable inland navigation on the river Danube it is necessary to take a number of steps in the right direction. These steps are complementary and include encouraging investments in waterway infrastructure and vessel fleet. Whether or not stakeholders will invest depends on hard evidence of economic benefits respectively a positive outlook on the development of market shares for inland navigation. At the core of this hard evidence is the provision of high fairway availability on one single waterway with the main emphasis on continuous sufficient fairway depth. In addition, harmonized, reliable, up-to-date and accessible information on fairway conditions has to be provided to all stakeholders. Continuing with the "status quo" in day-to-day waterway maintenance without substantial investments in surveying capacity, IT infrastructure and a WMMS together with additional training of staff cannot be recommended if significant improvements are to be achieved. In order to overcome the current structural, legal and organizational patchwork, forming a permanent task force of internal and external experts of waterway authorities would be an important step. This task force would be in charge of the development and implementation of a common maintenance strategy with the concomitant establishmend of a full WMMS for the entire Danube. Finally, the analysis revealed the great potential of the Danube as cost-efficient and environmental-friendly transport infrastructure. This feasibility study provides analyses and methods together with tangible solutions and next steps to convert this potential into substantial improvement.

Availability, Asset Management, Dredging, Optimization, Transport Economics, Cost Comparison, Utilization, Inland Navigation, Scenarios