A Multimodal Network Approach to the Inland and Coastal Waterway System

The inland waterway system carries a significant percentage of the national
freight. Maintenance operations including dredging and dam repair are important
to maintaining the effective and efficient operation of the system. Dredging projects
are for recovery of the navigational channel draft from the shoaling effect while
lock/dam repair is about maintaining a maximum possible operational hours to
reduce the waiting and delay of vessels therein. The special feature in this study
is that the shoaling effect is random, as is subject to weather and other effects.
This study specially deals with maintenance fund allocation to these maintenance
requests by first proposing a multimodal approach for formulating the waterway
maintenance problem in a connected network, which considers rivers, locks/dams,
and highways and railways.