Three Gorges ship lift shipping dispatching system opened

In recent years, the cargo throughput of the Three Gorges dam area and the number of ships passing the gate have all experienced rapid growth. To improve the overall capacity of the Three Gorges Project and to ease the navigation pressure of the Three Gorges Project, the Three Gorges Ship Lift has been started on the basis of the two existing navigation projects. Construction is expected to be put into use around 2015.

How to scientifically dispatch and rationally organize and guarantee the overall navigational order of the Three Gorges dam area and realize the safe and smooth flow of ships? The Three Gorges ship lift shipping dispatching system construction project will effectively solve this practical problem. As the “brain” of the control of the “Chuan-Eh Throat”, the project has now entered the development stage with a total investment of nearly 3 million RMB. It will include a large ship lift (under construction) in the Three Gorges Dam area and a Three Gorges Double Line Five. Navigation facilities such as ship locks, three locks of Gezhouba Dam, and 10 large-scale anchorages all run through the whole process of navigation.

The Three Gorges Navigation Administration Bureau stated that the Bureau will build the "brain" in accordance with the requirements of creating a national shipping dispatch system. After the completion of the construction, the system will be more advanced, reliable, and smarter than the previous dispatching system. It can accept the declaration of the ship's Internet extra-network gate; it can fully consider the navigational characteristics of the area's speed, weather, and water conditions. Using GPS, AIS system and other information systems to comprehensively consider the ship's positioning; it can realize optimal ship-passage planning and intelligent dispatching plans that take into account specific shipping forms and management requirements in 4, 8, and 24 hours; it can provide graphical anchorages. Ship management function; it can use GPS terminal, mobile phone short message and Internet network to publish the scheduling plan and related records to the public...

It is understood that the construction of the system will take 10 months, and it is expected that the main project will be completed in August 2014. By then, the Three Gorges Navigation Administration Bureau will provide more user-friendly services to the ship owners.