Inland waterways and ferries covers river and lake transport infrastructure, including inland ports, jetties, locks, navigation channels and ferry terminals.
The Capability Development Index tracks the events that move a capability — operational use, technical breakthroughs, procurement decisions and the industrial base behind them — and places each on the record with the date it happened.
Recent developments cover the current period. Historical developments are the inflection points that produced Inland Waterways & Ferries as it stands today.
The ECMT set out a classification system for navigable rivers and canals, grading them by the dimensions of vessels they could accommodate. It was subsequently extended to account for the development of push-towing. The scheme gave European states a common technical reference for waterway infrastructure planning.
The plan aimed to increase the volume of goods carried on Europe's rivers and canals and to accelerate the shift to zero-emission barges by 2050. It aligned with the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy and the European Green Deal, which targeted a 25% increase in inland canal and short-sea shipping by 2030 and 50% by 2050.