Project status
Completed
Start date: 07/01/04
End date: 11/30/05
Researcher(s)
Principal investigator:
- Ray Mundy | University of Missouri - St. Louis
Co-principal investigator:
- James Campbell | University of Missouri-St. Louis
About the research
A system of 37 locks and dams has been constructed along the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway (UMR-IW) to provide reliable commercial inland navigation. This infrastructure has a limited throughput and delays at locks and dams create congestion, bottlenecks and inefficiencies at certain critical segments of the UMR-IW system. Over one million barge-hours are wasted annually waiting in these queues. These hours both decrease the total quantity of goods that can be moved, and increase the transportation costs of goods that are moved on the UMR-IW. This project will adopt a complementary approach that seeks to reduce congestion by employing an intelligent appointment system at the existing locks.
Reports:
- Management Systems for Inland Waterway Traffic Control, Volume I: Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives for Managing Lock Traffic on the Upper Mississippi River (2 mb pdf) November 2005
- Management Systems for Inland Waterway Traffic Control, Volume II: Vessel Tracking for Managing Traffic on the Upper Mississippi River (1.4 mb pdf) November 2005
Sponsor(s)/partner(s)
Sponsor(s): Midwest Transportation Consortium