Marking the waterway with appropriate waterway signs and marks is an essential prerequisite for ensuring the traffic safety of Danube navigation. Since the beginning of 2018, viadonau has also been responsible for the relevant operational activities due to an amendment to the Waterways Act. This includes the procurement, installation, maintenance, servicing and removal of public waterway signs and marks. All sovereign tasks remain with the Navigation Surveillance / Supreme Navigation Authority in the Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.
Since the takeover of the operational activities, the rhythmic lights on land and water (waterway signs with flashing light) along the Austrian Danube have been equipped with satellite-based remote monitoring. Twice a day, the self-contained lanterns send a status report about their position, any position deviations and the status of their battery voltage and the like to the monitoring software via a satellite network.
In order to increase traffic safety on the international waterway Danube, clearly visible and low-maintenance fairway buoys made of polyethylene were installed to replace the former steel buoys. In a second step, these PE buoys were equipped with remote monitoring modules in order, on the one hand, to restore buoyage more quickly after these signs were hit and / or driven off and, on the other hand, to identify those who caused damage to these marks and to enable subsequent claims for damages.
In addition, the modernization of the buoy barriers in the headwater of the Danube power plants was initiated and more robust chains and anchors were procured for the purpose of attaching the floating fairway marks to the riverbed.