A ship lock scheduling model called LOSCO was developed in order to decrease passage times at locks with two parallel chambers. Three locks were chosen to model, as they are some of the busiest locks of the Netherlands. The Krammersluizen, the Sluizen Hansweert and the Kreekraksluizen. Passage times are not collected at the locks, therefore the model was compared to SIVAK. SIVAK is the standard model for research on locks at Rijkswaterstaat. To schedule vessels in locks three types of choices can be made. Every vessel needs to be assigned to a chamber, the initiation time of locking should be decided and the order of sailing in a chamber should bedefined. By optimising these choices, passage times can be decreased. Optimising is however not straightforward, as the problem is an instance of the job shop scheduling problem. No exact algorithm has been found to solve these problems in a practical amount of time. Therefore the challange is to find a balance in solution quality and the speed of the model when creating a lock scheduling model. In this thesis, four ideas to improve the lock scheduling model by Verstichel were researched. The first idea is to change the resolution of the timesteps. The gain in performance was however not found to weight up against the loss in solution quality for resolution to be useful. The second idea is to drop the first come, first serve constraint that Verstichel created. This idea was also not found to be effective. The third idea is to divide the scheduling problem up into chunks. This is called cut separation. Chunks of around 25 vessels were found to be effective. The fourth and last idea is that of a maximum waiting time. The maximum waiting time makes the performance of the model better and also makes the scheduling model fairer. Data from the year 2016 was used to schedule all lockings. The LOSCO model is effective for reducing the average assage time per vessel with about 3.9 ± 0.12 SE minutes for the Krammersluizen and 2.0 ± 0.14 SE minutes for the Sluizen Hansweert compared to the SIVAK model. At the Kreekraksluizen, the model could not find a solution, as the Kreekraksluizen are a lot busier than the other locks that were tested. At the Kreekraksluizen on average every 7.8 minutes a vessel arrives, whereas at the Krammersluizen and the Sluizen Hansweert respectively every 14.0 and 13.0 minutes a vessel arrives throughout the year. The LOSCO model is only better than SIVAK if the lock is relatively quiet. At the busiest time of the day, typically in the afternoon, SIVAK performs better. The models perform equal at inter arrival times of around 8
to 10 minutes. Optimisation on economical value of the vessels was found to be less effective than optimisation on time. Optimisation on time was also found to be fairer. The LOSCO model is a step ahead towards a practical lock scheduling model. In order to achieve a fully practical model, some simplifications need to be expanded. It is recommended to first improve the model before it is applied in practice, as the model is able to outperform SIVAK in some cases, but not in the busiest cases. After this some extra features can be implemented, such as the model dealing with vessel delays and locks with 3 chambers.

This research focuses on the impact of extreme low river discharges, meaning discharges below 1200 m2/s at Lobith. In 2018 extreme low river discharges in the river Rhine led to congestions in the main Dutch part, called the river Waal. The river Waal is an important river for inland navigation, but during low discharges the vessel draught reduces and consequently the transported cargo volume per shipment reduces. To compensate the loss of transport volume, the total number of shipments increases, leading to an increased traffic intensity on the river Waal.  The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of extreme low discharges on the traffic flow and traffic capacity in the river Waal. The study consisted of two elements: a study combining fleet data and hydraulic information and a traffic simulation study. During this research IVS90 data was used as the source for inland waterway transport data. Based on literature and previous river Waal studies the river section between the Pannerdensche Kop and the Maas-Waal canal was selected as the river section to investigate in more detail. Multi-beam measurements in combination with water level data were used to generate cross-sectional profiles in order to carry out the simulations. The cross-sectional profiles were highly variable. From these cross-sectional profiles the navigable river width was determined. It was found that a river depth of 2.80 m was no longer available at all cross-sections from a discharge of 900 m2/s and lower. Therefore, the navigable width was determined at a river depth of 2.0 m for the discharges 1020, 900, 800, 700 and 600 m2/s. Also, it was found that with reducing discharge the navigable width of the cross-sections reduced.   The fleet composition was determined in detail for four weeks representing the drought of 2018. These four weeks in 2018 represented weeks with average discharges around 1020(2x), 800 and 700 m2/s. The river Waal fleet composition was determined based on the Rijkswaterstaat vessel classification system (RWS-class) and categorised in three groups: coupled units (all RWS-classes with index C), push-tow units (all RWS-classes with index B) and motorised vessels (all RWS-classes with index M). It was found that the number of passages by coupled units and push-tow units was effected largely during the drought of 2018. The number of passages by push-tow units reduced significantly from October 2018 as the discharge dropped below 1500 m2/s and the number of passages remained low until the discharge raise above the 1020 m2/s at the end of 2018. The number of passages by coupled units increased already before the discharge reached the 1020 m2/s limit and continued to increase throughout the period of drought. The number of passages by coupled units started to decline only after the discharge rose above the 1020 m2/s again. Even though the daily average number of passages increased during the drought of 2018, the total transported cargo volume per day decreased. There was a strong relationship between discharges below 1200 m2/s and the transported cargo volume per day.  Within this study special attention was given to the occurrence of congestion in the river Waal. The occurrence of congestion was investigated using the traffic simulation model SIMDAS. As indicators for congestion a fluency and safety limit of 8% was used to evaluate the simulated traffic, as well as simulations of the traffic flow. As safety parameter the penetration of the safety margin of a vessel in percentage of the total number of vessel interactions was used. While the percentage of the number of vessels that need to reduce their speed fully during their passages was used as the fluency parameter. With SIMDAS also the impact of increased traffic intensity and reduced navigable width were analyzed. The simulation results showed that the reduced navigable width had more impact on the delay time, the fluency parameter and the safety parameter than the increase of the daily intensity. During the simulations large congestions occurred for discharges of 800 m2/s and lower, but small harmonically moving congestions already occurred for a discharge of 1020 m2/s. Harmonically moving congestions, meaning seven or more vessels traveling behind one larger or slower vessel while awaiting room to overtake, were observed in the traffic simulations. Permanent congestions with ten or more vessels were observed in the simulation of the river width with a 800 m2/s discharge. The data analysis and the traffic simulations clearly showed the effects of the extreme low discharges on the traffic flow and traffic capacity. The conclusion of this study is that the traffic capacity of the river Waal is at its limit at discharges of 800 m2/s and lower.  This study made also clear the need for correct fleet data and river bed levels. The limited available fleet data reduced the accuracy of the results. The river bed should be monitored regularly in order to know the actual water depth particularly during low discharges. Furthermore, it is recommended that highly variable river profiles are implemented in the traffic simulation model SIMDAS to improve the simulation of the vessel's sailing trajectories. Also, the validation of the vessel trajectories in SIMDAS with AIS data is recommended in order to evaluate the traffic intensity on the traffic lanes in the river.  

The main aim of this research was to establish which measures are significant in reducing the CO2 emission levels on the waterways between Rotterdam and Antwerp.

In the Netherlands a large variety exists in the used widths of inland port entrances. In addition, multiple entrance layouts are applied. Currently, guidelines are missing for the design of inland port entrances along flowing waters with flow velocities larger than 0.5 m/s. A more generic insight into the minimum required nautical safe entrance width and most efficient entrance layout can reduce the design costs and time. The objective of this research was to find the minimum required nautical safe entrance width for generic situations for inland ports along flowing waters in non-tidal areas. To find this minimum safe entrance width, the most efficient entrance layout was determined. The influence of different design parameters was studied to provide the most efficient situation. Moreover, an insight into the influence of these parameters was needed to determine the effect on the most efficient situation when changing these parameters. A fast-time simulation study was chosen to analyse the influence of different design parameters on the entrance width. A rectangular entrance layout and a mathematical ship model comparable with a loaded CEMT class Va ship were used. Flow velocities between 1.0 and 2.5 m/s were taken into account. Moreover, the influence of the waterway width, entrance width, length and angle were analysed with the simulation study. The fast-time simulation program SHIPMA was used to perform the simulation study. As a result of the simulation study, it was found that the most efficient entrance angle is 120 degrees. Note that this is an entrance orientation in downstream direction. Also from a viewpoint of minimising siltation, this angle is more favourable than an angle of 90 degrees or smaller. The required entrance widths for arrivals sailing upstream and manoeuvring forward into the port are circa 55 and 80 meters, for flow velocities of respectively 1.0 and 2.5 m/s. For the determined most efficient layout, the forward manoeuvres into the port when sailing downstream were replaced by backward manoeuvres. For these backward manoeuvres the required entrance widths are circa 70 and 90 meters, for flow velocities of respectively 1.0 and 2.0 m/s. A linear relation was observed between the flow velocity and the required entrance width. For the most efficient entrance layout, it was found that the sensitivity of the entrance length, width and angle was small. These results are only valid for an available waterway width larger than 90 meters. For smaller waterway widths additional research is required. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that the limitations of the SHIPMA model also apply for the acquired research results. The most important limitation is that human interference was not included in this research. Besides, only a limited amount of design parameters was included in the simulation study. Additional research is required to study the influence of other design parameters on the required entrance width.

With the development of the inland waterway transport, ship locks become more and more important as infrastructure in waterway network. Currently, there are a lot of studies about the capacity of locks, but the impact of the chamber’s horizontal dimension on the passing time and the costs-benefits should be studied more. In order to study the method of selecting optimum scenarios of enlarging locks, Eefde lock is taken as a case. The thesis is aimed to determine the optimum enlargement scenario for the Eefde lock. Furthermore, the relationship between the horizontal dimension of chambers and costs-benefits is also found and suggestions are given to other locks with insufficient capacity. In the thesis, different scenarios are made at first, and then SIVAK (Simulation model for Waterways and Infrastructure) is used for simulations. The study finds that the enlargement of width is more effective to reduce waiting time than the enlargement of the chamber’s length. After the study of the Eefde lock, approach to the optimum enlargement scenarios is generalized for other locks.