The Inland ECDIS S57-standard is adopted by both the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR) and by the Danube Commission, while the electronic chart suppliers have accepted the standard. RIS is not only for navigation and for operational aspects like lock planning but also has security aspects.
It became clear that in North America the priority is set on fixed topographic/hydrographic data where positional aspects of continuous buoy changes and such things as cargo information aspects for the administrative logistic chain (customs etc.) are intend to be solved at a later stage. In Europe more attention is paid to the information aspect of the RIS-concept, while not much data is currently available and the data production progress is slow due to lack of budgetary commitment - did not the maritime ECDIS prove: no official data, no customers for ECDIS-systems?
Much interest is being shown in the outcome of this conference, as other parts of the world (such as Egypt/Nile, South America and China) are also considering RIS-like projects. It is the data standard that needs attention now; it is not to be expected that inland river charts all over the world will look the same as local users will have an influence here. Therefore it was gladly concluded that there was a general wish to come to one Inland ECDIS-standard and to continue to exchange ideas and work together.
After the first two days, which were dedicated to informative presentations, the participants broke up into working groups to work in detail on the S57-standard. Participants in these working groups were manufacturers, experts from departments of transport, academia, inland shipping authorities and a representative of the skippers.
The working groups worked on a framework for production of Inland ENCs which included: a central registry for IHO/nonIHO S-57 object classes, attributes and attribute values, a core product specification common to all known Inland ENC-specifications and regional product specifications suitable to the users of local water networks. The Open ECDIS Forum was considered the means for communication and publication. To encourage participants in the framework to come forward with their own regional product specification a set of guidelines were drafted. More information may be found on www.euro-compris.org, www.mvn.
usace.army.mil, www.tec.army.mil/ echarts, and www.openecdis.org/
discussion/InlandECDIS/.