NOORDERSOFT
and
River Information Services
The RIS-Index is an index of all constructions (e.g. locks, bridges, loading and unloading quays etcetera) in the european waterways. The index contains ALL constructions described by the relevant competent authorities, as long as they are situated in inland waterways that are navigable for vessels with a length of 10,00 meters, a beam of 3,00 meters, a draught of 1,00 meter and an air draught of 2,50 meters. At the moment it contains more than 31.000 constructions!
The RIS-Index is a standardized list: the country code (two characters, identical to the country code of the United Nations Location Code or UNLocode) is followed by four characters indicating the waterway. The next to digits indicate the construction type (e.g. 01 is a lock, 02 a bridge, see also the legend in the .zip file). The next 6 digits contain the id-number; together with the first 8 characters it identifies the construction uniquely.
The RIS-Index is a private initiative, designed to identify locations in the waterways network. The Central Rhine Commission has decided, shortly after the lauch of the RIS-Index, to prescribe the ISRS code, for the same purpose. The ISRS code is built up from the UN-Countrycode and UN-Location code, followed by five digits indicating the waterway section, then by five charachters indicating the terminal or the specific point, and finally followed by five digits indicating the hectometer point in the particular section of the waterway. The total of 20 positions (of which sometimes only 15 are actually used) is represented in the NoorderSoft RIS-Index in one of the columns reserved for official data. By the difference in length (14, 15 or 20 digits) the used code can easily be identified.
The sequences of the RIS-Index are made available from the private data of NoorderSoft. Because of the fact that in most countries data management of the infrastructure is a task of the competent authorities, amendments can be made to the index, to keep it compatible with the public data. Therefore any competent authority can add its own codes - which will usually be the ISRS code - to the index, in the columns ExportRISIDX01, 02, 03 a.s.o. as long as the original code numbers remain intact. This assures the compatibility of data from both public and private data collections in all kinds of River Information Services.
Of course the opposite is possible too: any competent authority can include the index records in its own data collections, allowing for exactly the same compatibility.
ATTENTION! To ensure that official data from the competent authorities will find their way into the RIS-Index, they can simply be forwarded to NoorderSoft. NoorderSoft will arrange for the insertion of these data into the RIS-Index free of charge. Thus the availibility of these official data to other RIS-Index users will be assured.
If a construction is found to be missing, this can be notified to NoorderSoft, where one will take care to add it to the index after verification of some data with the relevant competent authority.
Both NoorderSoft and most competent authorities maintain many more data of the concerned constructions in the RIS Index: dimensions, position, descriptions, communication channels, operating hours and so on. Most of these data can be made available to interested parties under licensing conditions and against payment of license fees. Unless previous arrangements or already granted exclusivity rights prevent it, NoorderSoft can inform you about the fees and conditions of these licensing agreements. Please contact NoorderSoft for these matters, preferably by email.
The RIS Server of NoorderSoft contains a number of River Information Services functions. The server is used as a test platform for BoRIS (Barge operations in River Information Services) and for the experiments with dedicated Notices to Skippers, Gauge information and Ice messages. For access to the server an access code and a pass word are necessary. These can be obtained by concerned parties from NoorderSoft via email.