Commission Regulation (EC) No 416/2007 of 22 March 2007 concerning the technical specifications for Notices to Skippers as referred to in Article 5 of Directive 2005/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised river information services (RIS) on inland waterways in the Community

Article 1

This Regulation defines the technical specifications for Notices to Skippers. The technical specifications are set out in the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

ANNEX

1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

1.1.   Definitions

Fairway Information Services (FIS) mean geographical, hydrological and administrative information regarding the waterway (fairway) that are used by boatmasters and fleet managers to plan, execute and monitor a voyage. The terms ‘boatmaster’ and ‘skipper’ used in the present standard shall be deemed to be equivalent with the term ‘ship master’ used in the River Information Services (RIS) Guidelines (Commission Regulation (EC) No 414/2007 (¹)), while the term ‘fleet managers’ is defined in Commission Regulation (EC) No 415/2007 (²).

FIS provide dynamic information (such as water levels, water level predictions) as well as static information (such as operating times of locks and bridges) regarding the use and status of the inland waterway infrastructure, and thereby support tactical and strategic navigation decisions.

Traditional means to supply FIS include visual aids to navigation, notices to skippers published on paper, provided by broadcast and by fixed telephone on locks. The mobile phone has added new possibilities of voice and data communication, but cellular network is not available in all places and at all times. Tailor-made FIS for the waterways can be supplied by radiotelephone service on inland waterways, Internet service or electronic navigational chart service, such as the Inland Electronic Chart Display and Information System (Inland ECDIS) with Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC).

1.2.   Primary functions and performance requirements for Notices to Skippers (NtS)

This technical specification for NtS provides rules for the data transmission of fairway information via Internet.

NtS shall:

(a) provide information related to fairway conditions, traffic, weather, water levels and ice for Fairway Information Services;

(b) provide automatic translation of the most important content of notices, using standard vocabulary based on code lists (the NtS Reference Tables as provided in Appendix E);

(c) be provided in a standardised structure of data-sets to facilitate the integration of notices in voyage planning systems;

(d) be compatible with the data-structure of the RIS Index and Inland ECDIS to facilitate integration of NtS into Inland ECDIS as stipulated by Directive 2005/44/EC of 7 September 2005 on harmonised RIS on inland waterways in the Community.

The technical specifications for NtS facilitate the data-exchange among NtS systems of different countries and towards other applications making use of NtS data, including Inland ECDIS.

Some information contained within NtS messages can be standardised, some cannot.

The standardised part shall cover all the information which is:

(a) important for the safety of inland navigation (for example: sunken small craft on the right side of the fairway at the Danube, river-km 2010);

(b) needed for voyage planning including closure of locks and reduction of vertical clearance.

Additional information that is not relevant for safety or voyage planning, including the cause of the closure of a lock, may be given as free text, without automatic translation. The use of free text shall be restricted to a minimum.

2. PROVISION OF NOTICES TO SKIPPERS

Member States shall ensure that NtS messages are accessible online and via standardised NtS web service, in accordance with the technical specifications described in this Annex and its Appendices. The standardised NtS web service specification is included in Appendix D in the form of a ‘Web Service Description Language’ (WSDL).

The standardised NtS web services shall provide the user with the possibility to select messages on the grounds of at least one of the following criteria:

(c) a specific waterway section;

(d) a specific part of a waterway, defined by the river-km of the starting and the end point;

(e) time of validity of the notice (start date and end date of validity period);

(f) date of publication of the notice (date and time of publication).

NtS messages that comply with the standards referred to in this Annex can be provided, among other tools, by:

(a) mobile applications (apps);

(b) E-mail services.

Data exchange among the NtS systems operated in different countries may be carried out. All systems using the standards described in the Annex of this Regulation may integrate NtS of other systems in their own services, provided the content of the message is not modified. Users shall be informed in case the connection to a source of integrated NtS is interrupted or not available.

3. NTS MESSAGE TYPES

NtS messages are essential messages that are standardised to the highest part possible.

There are four NtS message types, namely:

(a) fairway and traffic related message;

(b) water related message;

(c) ice related message;

(d) weather related message.

4. STRUCTURE OF NTS AND ENCODING OF NTS MESSAGES

This chapter describes the structure and encoding of standardised electronic NtS messages.

An NtS message is a structured message using standardised elements, wherever possible. The use of free text in the data elements shall be restricted to a minimum.

The standardised NtS extended markup language (XML) schema definition, referred to as XSD in this standard, contains the standardised code values and possible formats is included in Appendix C.

The standardised code values and the XML tags, their meaning and translation are provided in the NtS Reference Tables in Appendix E and are also available electronically in the European Reference Data Management System (ERDMS) operated by the European Commission.

4.1.   General structure

An NtS message consists of the following sections:

(a) identification section;

(b) section defining the applicable object(s) or fairway section(s) the message is related to;

(c) limitation(s) for a fairway and traffic related message, measurement(s) for a water related message, ice condition(s) for an ice related message or weather report(s) for a weather related message.

Each message must contain an identification section. The identification section contains general information about the issuer and date of publication of the message.

The fairway and traffic related message contains information for fairway section(s) or object(s), and it is used to indicate limitation(s) for the following purposes:

(a) ‘Warning’: relevant for safety. The warning must contain at least one limitation that results in direct and concrete endangerment of persons, crafts or facilities, such as welding works on a bridge producing sparks, inspection cage/workers hanging from a bridge, obstacle in the fairway,

(b) ‘Announcement’: relevant for voyage planning or safety. The announcement may contain limitations, such as blockage of a lock chamber due to maintenance works, dredging on the fairway,

(c) ‘Info service’: general information that is not directly linked to voyage planning or safety. The info service must not contain specific limitations, therefore it is not directly relevant to voyage planning or safety. Such information might include general information such as local rules of traffic, Inland ECDIS Update.

The water related section contains values or predictions for:

(a) water level;

(b) least sounded depth;

(c) vertical clearance;

(d) barrage status;

(e) discharge;

(f) regime.

Usually, water related information is created and published automatically based on data received from sensor equipment (such as tide gauge), systems (such as water level model) or infrastructure (such as barrage status). There may be different triggers for publication, such as periodical publication or reaching certain value.

The ice related message contains information about the actual or predicted ice conditions for fairway section(s). Ice related information is usually generated by competent personnel based on local observation and professional assessment.

The weather related message contains information about (dangerous) weather conditions for inland navigation.

In order to facilitate the distribution of hydro-meteo information from hydro-meteo networks to skippers, weather related messages may be published.

4.2.   Explanation of XML tags and code values in the NtS Reference Tables

The meaning of the different elements used in the NtS XML schema definition (XSD) is described in the NtS Reference Tables provided in Appendix E. The structure, format and possible values of all XML elements are described in the NtS XSD in Appendix C.

(a) Latitude and longitude coordinates are encoded according to the World Geodetic System 1984 and are presented in degrees and minutes with at least three, but preferable four decimals ([d]d mm.mmm[m] N, [d][d]d mm.mmm[m] E).

(b) Decimals in numeric fields are indicated with a decimal point (‘.’). No separators for thousand are used.

(c) NtS messages shall only use the following units for the values included in the XML message: cm, m3/s, h, km/h and kW, m/s (wind), mm/h (rain) and degree Celsius. National applications may convert the units for user-friendly display.

4.3.   Identification of fairway sections and objects in NtS messages

To fulfil the minimum data requirements for provision of information about objects relevant for Inland navigation as referred to in Article 4(3)(a) of Directive 2005/44/EC, the ISRS Location Code has to be used in the object section. The ISRS Location Code is used to uniquely identify objects and fairway sections and to ensure interoperable RIS Systems and Services (such as to combine information about infrastructure from the RIS Index, Inland ECDIS and NtS for voyage planning).

The ISRS Location Code is a 20-digit alphanumerical code used to establish a unique and standardized relation between objects in River Information Services. It consists of the following mandatory data elements, arranged in four information blocks:

(a) Block 1: UN/LOCODE (5 letters, alphanumerical), comprising — Country code (2 digits, alphanumerical) (³), and — Location code (3 digits, alphanumerical, ‘XXX’ if not available)

(b) Block 2: Fairway section code (5 digits, alphanumerical, to be determined by the national authority)

(c) Block 3: Object Reference Code (5 digits, alphanumerical, ‘XXXXX’ if not available)

(d) Block 4: Fairway section hectometre (5 digits, numerical, hectometre at the centre of the area or ‘00000’ if not available).

The ISRS Location Codes and the reference data of objects are maintained by the Member States in the RIS Index and submitted to the ERDMS operated by the European Commission according to the Maintenance procedures for the RIS Index published on the ERDMS website.

4.4.   Rules for encoding of NtS messages

NtS messages shall be encoded in line with the NtS Encoding Guide for editors (Appendix A) and in line with the NtS Encoding Guide for application developers (Appendix B).

Abbreviations:

Abbreviation	Meaning
CEVNI	European Code for Inland Waterways (http://www.unece.org/trans/main/sc3/sc3res.html)
ENC	Electronic Navigational Chart
FTM	Fairway and Traffic related Message
ICEM	ICE Message
Inland ECDIS	Inland Electronic Chart Display and Information System
ISRS Location Code	‘International Ship Reporting Standard’ Location Code
NtS	Notices to Skippers
RIS	River Information Services
VHF	maritime mobile band
WERM	Weather Related Message
WRM	Water Related Message
WSDL	Web Services Description Language
XML	Extended Markup Language
XSD	XML Schema Definition

1. Background, structure and purpose of NtS Encoding Guides

The NtS Standard is continuously being improved. A major step forward was the release of the NtS web service facilitating exchange of NtS messages between authorities as well as between authorities and NtS users.

Two documents have been developed to facilitate the harmonised encoding of NtS messages nationally and internationally: the NtS Encoding Guide for editors and the NtS Encoding Guide for application developers. These Guides apply to NtS XSD 4.0 and the NtS Web Service WSDL 2.0.4.0.

Considering increased use of the NtS web service, NtS messages shall be further harmonised to ensure proper display of content on third party systems. Uniform encoding of messages is also a prerequisite for consideration of messages in voyage planning applications.

Elements that would contain only standard or default values shall be omitted if they are conditional, because they lead to message overhead with no added value.

The NtS Encoding Guide for editors is intended for those editing (and publishing) of NtS messages, including step-by-step instructions to create the proper message types as well as an explanation of codes. The NtS Encoding Guide explains the applicability of the four NtS message types, provides filling instructions as well as codes to be used in certain events. The NtS Encoding Guide for editors is included in the present Appendix A.

The NtS Encoding Guide for application developers includes guidelines for NtS application development and implementation, explaining its logic, processes and auto/default values. The NtS Encoding Guide for application developers is included in Appendix B of the Annex to this Regulation.

2. Selection of the NtS message type

— FTM: Choose this type if you want to create a ‘Fairway and traffic related message’ for waterways or objects on the waterway. [go to chapter 3]

— WRM: Choose this type if you want to create a ‘Water related message’, which enables provision of information on current and predicted water levels as well as other information. The water related message contains information for an object or a fairway section. The object is identified by its ISRS Location Code, the fairway section is defined by its begin- and end-ISRS Location Codes.

— ICEM: Choose this type if you want to create an ‘Ice related message’. The Ice message section contains information about the ice conditions for a fairway stretch defined by its begin- and end-ISRS Location Codes.

— WERM: Choose this type if you want to create a ‘Weather related message’, which enables provision of information on current as well as forecasted weather situations on a waterway stretch defined by its begin- and end-ISRS Location Codes.

3. FTM basic considerations, steps towards publication of an FTM

Detailed information which codes have to be used is given in chapter 4. The considerations beginning from 3.3 are not necessarily in the input order of an FTM editor tool.

3.1.Is there a need to publish information via NtS FTM according to NtS Standard? All relevant information concerning safety and voyage planning has to be published via NtS messages. Information that is not relevant in terms of safety and voyage planning may be published. Each topic/incident/event has to be published in a separate message.

3.2.Does a valid FTM already exist related to the current situation (related to the content as well as to the time of validity)?

3.2.1.Yes:

The already existing FTM has to be updated. The respective published message has to be selected and updated in the FTM editor tool. An expired FTM cannot be updated any more.

3.2.2.No:

A new FTM has to be compiled. In case a similar event is already coded in an existing FTM the respective FTM can be used as draft for the creation of a new FTM (if this function is available), or a template may be used (if this function is available).

3.3.The geographical range of validity is to be set

3.3.1.In case the FTM is related to a specific stretch of a waterway, the waterway stretch has to be included, defined by its begin- and end points. If the content applies to several sections of the same waterway or different waterways they can all be listed in one FTM.

3.3.2.In case the FTM is related to a specific object (e.g. bridge, lock etc.) on the waterway the respective object is to be selected out of the list of available objects (if selection is available). There is no need to define a waterway stretch within the message. In case an FTM applies to several objects they can all be included in one FTM.

3.3.3.Combination of object- and fairway-related information is possible within one message as long as the information relates to one specific cause/event (same subject and reason code).

3.3.4.Although the coordinates are conditional they shall be provided to support the display on maps (often these coordinates are automatically provided by the NtS application).

3.4.Content of the FTM is to be entered

All information that can be expressed using the NtS Reference Tables has to be coded in the standardised message fields. Only additional information (which is not encodable otherwise) shall be stated in free text fields.

3.5.The target group(s) concerning the type of vessels and affected directions is/are to be entered if applicable.

3.5.1.In case the message is valid for all crafts (all types of vessels) in all directions the target group shall be left out in order to only code essential information. If the message/limitation is addressed to a specific target group or direction the respective codes are to be selected.

3.5.2.In case the whole message is valid for specific target groups, the target group information is to be provided in the general part of the FTM (and not repeated in the limitation section(s)).

3.5.3.In case there are different target groups applicable to different limitations the target group information is to be provided within the respective limitations (and not repeated in the general part).

3.5.4.In case exemptions from limitations are granted to individual vessels or local traffic by the competent authorities (e.g. vessels participating in an event for which a general blockage is applicable, local ferry traffic in blocked areas) such exemptions need not be taken into account for coding of the target group(s). Such information may be stated in the free text field for additional information.

3.6.The communication section is to be entered if applicable

If additional information is available via a specific source it should be stated in this section. If there is an additional obligation to report via a specific medium it is to be stated in this section.