A year after its launch, the EuRIS portal www.eurisportal.eu for inland navigation provides a major release with new features and improved user-friendliness. Amongst others, the vessel claim procedure was improved and data visibility and availability were optimised, based on user feedback.
Photo: © viadonau/Pilo Pichler
Since the launch of EuRIS, thousands of inland waterway users already found their way to the portal. They appreciate the services EuRIS offers and the fact that data from almost the entire European fairway network is now available in one spot. Moreover, developers from both professional and recreational shipping profit by the option that EuRIS offers to retrieve data via API’s and use it in their own apps.
New release
In the new EuRIS release, much attention was paid to improving the user friendliness of the portal. Amongst others, vessel owners now have more flexibility and options to ease the vessel claim process. The portal offers better data visibility and improved search and filter options on most services. Multi language support is improved, for example the names of many objects (bridges, locks, berths, terminals) are now available in the national language of the object. Searching for these objects is also improved.
Based on the received feedback from end users & operators, other improvements that have been made are:
- Notices to Skippers handling and visualisation improved
- Geographical maps show relevant information on a much larger scale (traffic image, hydrometeo information)
- Static and actual bridge clearance information is better handled and visualized
- The published operating hours of infrastructure are refined
- Calculated voyage has a better voyage description (directions)
- Many improvements on the data, its visualization and message handling.
- General performance/security improvements and bug fixes.
Improvements on API’s
To promote the usage of the offered EuRIS services not only on the EuRIS web interface but also on many other applications with the use of API services, a new interface documentation section with code examples have been provided. This is available on https://developers.eurisportal.eu and will be kept up to date. Furthermore, several improvements on the content and extent of the API’s have been performed. For example: the actual vessels positions can be easily retrieved by fleet owners.
Major milestone is the provision of the current 27.000 km of digital waterway network and its connected RIS Index for download. Developers can use this data to build their own applications and provide additional services or solutions. All provided API’s of EuRIS are treated free of charge as Open Data (except for GDPR protected data). Users can subscribe to notifications to be informed when data is updated, or new data is made available.
The next steps
For the next releases, a complete re-design of the Route and Voyage planners and their usability is envisioned. Data quality will continuously be improved. A download feature for IENC charts will be added.
The EuRIS partners will continue to further develop the platform, depending on the needs and user demands. Users can provide feedback and express wishes for the future of EuRIS via the contact form on the website EuRIS - Contact (eurisportal.eu). All feedback is appreciated and will be considered by the partners.
EuRIS - your gateway to European Inland Navigation Information
The platform at www.eurisportal.eu was first released in September 2022 by 13 European fairway authorities. It covers the major interconnected inland waterway network in Europe. EuRIS gives access to static and dynamic information and thus gives actual, 24/7 insight about the waterways. Skippers and other users can at any time collect real-time information and gain insight in the actual traffic situation on their sailing route, waiting times, incidents or disruptions that affect the travel time. This helps inland waterway users to plan their voyage and arrival times throughout Europe. They can also share information with others, for example their ETA. This is offered in a protected environment, so that the privacy of all users is guaranteed.
