The complexity of ensuring safety in inland waterway transport

Abstract

Legal analysis of inland waterway transport security and transport safety is of theoretical and practical importance. The following issues are relevant: uniform interpretation of the terms used in the Russian legislation what concerns ensuring security, in general, and transport industry, in particular; systematizing multiple entities aimed at providing and participating in the protection and defence of river transport facilities and infrastructure; improving preventive mechanism of protection from unlawful interference acts. The growth of accident rate entails the need to refine the current administrative law mechanism. The research goal is an attempt to work out proposals aimed at improving protection effectiveness of river traffic of passengers and hazardous goods. The objectives of the research are to conduct a legal analysis of the legal framework designed to ensure the safety of inland waterways and transport safety on inland water transport; to systematize a variety of definitions used while regulating safety issues. Based on the analysis, the author singled out the following types of inland waterway transport security: navigation security, and security of inland waterways and their infrastructure. The fact there are no legal norms regulating transport security in the Inland Water Transport Code of the Russian Federation testifies to the lack of both comprehensive security and the stipulated legal mechanism that can be used to protect this type of transport from various types of threats, including acts of unlawful interference. In order to boost the security of vessels and river ports, the author suggests to add the transport security passport of a ship to the documented system of measures used to manage ship security; to review the mandatory requirements established to ensure the safety and transport security of vessels in order for such demands not to overlap and not to impose unreasonable burden on business entities; to compare control and supervision activities on inland water transport by objects of protection in terms of navigable hydraulic structures.