Eco-driving for inland navigation: A review

Inland waterway transport (IWT) is an efficient alternative to road freight, due to its lower greenhouse gas (GHG) and pollutant emissions per ton-kilometer. Increasing its modal share could play a significant role in fighting climate change, reducing road congestion, and reducing local pollution. In order to make it more competitive and to further reduce its impacts, operational optimization methods can be used to minimize its energy consumption. While such eco-driving methods are well studied for road transport and ocean-going vessels, no existing literature review was found by the authors for eco-driving in IWT. In this study, operational energy optimization methods proposed for IWT are reviewed. Frequently used objective functions, variables, and constraints are analyzed. Optimization methods considering travel time as a fixed constraint show average energy consumption reduction between 6% and 9%. Allowing travel time to increase, i.e. average speed to lower, yields higher gains, sometimes up to 35%. Specific water resistance calculations, current velocity computation methods, and optimization algorithms are discussed. Recommendations about future works are presented which include improving the feasibility of produced mission profiles, analyzing results sensitivity to variations in energy consumption models, and testing proposed optimizations in actual navigation.