River Information Services (RIS)
Since 2014, the Port of Brussels has been working on implementing RIS in Belgium in cooperation with the Flemish and Walloon regions. This project is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.
RIS stands for River Information Services. It is a combination of various services that aim to optimise the traffic and transportation process. Among other things, this will increase the safety and efficiency of inland navigation within Europe.
RIS streamlines the exchange of information between the managers and the users of the waterways. A uniform communication standard has been developed for this purpose. This has resulted in the better harmonisation of traffic management on European inland waterways. RIS also makes improved transport management possible through the exchange of transport and logistics data. This allows the RIS to solidify the competitive position of inland navigation.
Electronic navigational charts
One of the components of RIS is the provision of Inland Electronic Navigational Charts (IENCs). These contain the following information:
- Banks/shorelines;
- Works on the banks (groyne building and fendering);
- Contours of locks and dams;
- Waterway border (if available);
- Isolated hazards in the waterway, both above and below the water, such as tunnels, bridges, high-voltage cabling, buoys, beacons, light signals, and traffic signals;
- Axis of the waterway with kilometre and hectometre indicators.
The navigational charts of the Port of Brussels can be found in the ZIP file below.
How can I use these free navigational charts?
You need a “viewer” to use the free navigational charts. You can download the ENC viewer from the SevenCs company, whichis a software program that displays the charts and all of the information they contain, without all the additional tools offered by commercial navigation software.
You can find the view on the SevenCs downloads page:
https://www.sevencs.com/products/software-downloads/
Click “open” and the installation will start automatically after the download is complete or you can click “save”, after which you can launch the installation yourself from the folder/directory in which you saved the zip file.
You will also find a PDF of the User’s Guide in the folder where you installed the application.
Other free ENC viewers:
- Fugawi View ENC (Microsoft Windows)
- Caris Easy View (Microsoft Windows)
- Polar Navy (Apple Mac Os X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux)
