Navigation police rules are drawn up by the CCNR police regulations committee.
Main areas of responsibility:
Safety of navigation, operation of vessels and behaviour of river traffic
Relevant regulations:
Police Regulations for the Navigation of the Rhine (RPNR)
Radiotelephony guide for inland navigation
Main areas of responsibility:
Finalisation of guidelines for river information services and their harmonisation within Europe (River Information Services – RIS)
Relevant regulations:
Resolutions on RIS directives and standards
Committee Chairman: Mrs. SCHÄFER, Commissioner for Germany
Secretariat: Mrs. HIRTZ
Working groups: RP/G, RIS/G
The police regulations contains all the navigation rules applicable on the Rhine.
The police regulations settles the markings and lights to display by vessels and convoys, the rules for meeting, crossing, overtaking and berthing of vessels as well as the waterway signs, the allowed dimensions of vessels and convoys and the water protection against pollution to keep by navigation. The observance of the rules by navigation is supervised by the national water polices of the Rhine riparian states.
Rules for the whole Rhine
1. | General provisions |
2. | Marks, draught scales tonnage measurement |
3. | Visual signs on vessels |
4. | Sound signals on vessels, radiotelephony, radar |
5. | Waterway signs |
6. | Rules of the road |
7. | Berthing |
8. | Additional provisions |
Special rules for certain section of the Rhine
9. | Navigating and berthing |
10. | High water, low water |
11. | Maximum dimensions |
12. | Obligation of registering; warning posts |
13. | Canal peniches on the upper Rhine |
14. | Roadsteads |
Rules for environment protection
15. | River protection and waste disposal |
Annexes
1. | Distinguishing letters of states |
2. | (left void) |
3. | Visual signs on vessels |
4. | (left void) |
5. | (left void) |
6. | Sound signals on vessels |
7. | Waterway signs |
8. | Buoyage and marking of waterways |
9. | Warning lights on the Oberwesel - St Goar sector, PK 548.5 - 555.43 |
10. | Model of oil-control-log |
11. | Data to be entered in the Inland AIS device: navigational status information and the “reference point for the positional information aboard the vessel” |
12. | Vessel and convoy category list |
On a pan-European front, the UN-ECE adopted a recommendation with a view to harmonising inland navigation rules. The rules arising from this recommendation constitute the CEVNI code. Edition 6 was published in November 2021 in French, English and Russian.
The CEVNI Code was largely inspired by the Central Commission's RPNR. Many of its provisions are either identical or equivalent.
With a view to further enhancing the harmonisation of police rules, the UN-ECE, the Central Commission, the Danube Commission the Moselle Commission and the Sava Commission have begun work on the development of a joint document. The process will likely take several more years to complete.
The experts of the competent authorities and representatives of the police authorities of the Member States of the CCNR meet every few years in order to discuss the harmonization of the application of the traffic rules and to answer questions relating to their practical application. The last such meeting took place in Berlin in 2017.