Performance Measurements of European Inland Ships

In the EU project MoveIT, it is opted to improve the energy efficiency of inland vessels by improving the performance of these vessels. In order to do so, a large scope of on-board measurements has been done to better estimate the current performance of European inland ships. The goal of the measurements was to better understand the diversity of operational conditions and evaluate the possibility of benchmarking the performance of inland vessels. This paper presents the results of the speed trials and operational profile measurements for several pushers and self-propelled vessels on major European rivers: Rhine, Danube, and Senna. Based on the results it is evident that the benchmarking will require additional measurements due to the variety of operational conditions. One of the main reasons for this variety are fluctuations of water levels which are most evident in the long term measurements of an operational profile. The results shows how transport efficiency doubles during periods of high water levels for the investigated vessel. Keywords: speed trial measurements, operational profile, benchmarking