Applying Queueing Theory for Managing Waterways Systems subject to Service Interruptions

The navigability of German waterways depends on the functioning of its infrastructures, such as locks and weirs. Since most of them have almost reached the design working life, they should undergo maintenance and eventually repair. However for economic and operation reasons interventions should be prioritized. This paper proposes to model waterways networks as a system of queues and to apply queueing theory in order to define new prioritization criteria based on traffic characteristics. We especially consider the rate of abandonment in case of unexpected interruptions, accord-ing to which it is possible to express the loss in terms of ships in case of unplanned stall of one lock. A case study is finally developed in order to show how this research supports the planning and the prioritization of maintenance interventions