MANAGING INTERRUPTIONS TO NAVIGATION ON THE MOSELLE IN 2009
Interruption to navigation works on the Moselle, interview with Jean-François Moriceau,
Manager of UTI Moselle
by Alain Chartier (Webmaster VNF North-East)
Alain Chartier: Jean-François, the interruption to navigation works on the Moselle for 2009 are nearing completion. Overall, how did things go?
Jean-François Moriceau: I would have liked to say Phew! That's done. It should have been completed this evening (24 June).Unfortunately we're a little behind schedule. It's nothing to do with a lack of due care and attention in the planning of this interruption to navigation. We really put a lot of pressure on Philippe (???) and his team who helped us a lot. We put up notifications regarding the disruptions. We put the appropriate procedures in place. This year, it went very well, it really went very well indeed, apart of course from this brief delay regarding the undertaking which encountered a few shortcomings on certain technical points, but otherwise satisfactory overall.
Alain Chartier: So the advance planning work on the project enabled you…
Jean-François Moriceau: …to prevent all the problems we experienced in 2007. What I'll remember from this interruption to navigation is the commitment of the personnel from UTI. Obviously the maintenance division which is in the front line with its various departments, the IT department which provided the tools to control the lowering of the water body and monitor the water body, the engineering unit which handled administration for the work, the workshops, as usual, with all the (OPAs?) on the various projects and undertakings and we shouldn't forget the works supervisors, of course, who we'll see in the film, I believe. The works supervisors who did a very demanding job of work, as usual, and who put a lot of themselves into these important projects at the Apach lock and the Koenigsmacker lock.
Alain Chartier: So in 2009, the Koenigsmacker lock and the Apach lock as you've just said. What work has been scheduled for the years to come?
Jean-François Moriceau: Well, the replacement of the lock gates is ongoing, so next year it will be Richemont followed by Talange. We arrange things so that we have spare gates and spare gate sections at each site throughout Moselle, so, of course, at the present time, we'll be concentrating on the downstream section given that (the downstream sections are used more frequently and are the oldest?) but, gradually, we'll work our way upstream.
Alain Chartier: I believe there are also other works on the Moselle which are underway or are planned regarding the dams?
Jean-François Moriceau: Regarding the dams, yes, we still have centralised coordinated dam management work but this involves projects or interruptions to navigation.
I'd like to come back to the personnel. I spoke of lowering the water body etc. but I wouldn't want to overlook all the other people involved either, i.e. operations, for example, which was called upon to a much greater extent this year. It was they who monitored this lowering of the water body, who also continually monitored this (reach?), the lockkeepers at Koenigsmacker, those who monitored the (reach) from the river, they were out on the boat every day, inspecting the embankments from the boat and on dry land with the Metz office and then, of course, all the others who continued to carry out maintenance work on the structures during the interruption to navigation. So I wanted to stress this point. To stress, too, the work of the works supervisors. You get an idea of UTI with precisely this mutual support, the works supervisor upstream especially, on the Toul sector, who will come to the assistance of his downstream colleague given the workload there will be on the downstream section. So I just wanted to underline this point as well during this interruption to navigation.
Alain Chartier: So you were just talking about the setting up of UTI, which has been up and running for some time now, so in your opinion, has it seriously modified organisation, operation and functioning as well as the development of the Moselle?
Jean-François Moriceau: Development, internally, the mentality. I think that people really feel themselves to be UTI personnel now, especially in the maintenance division. We have had Frédéric Marchal – and I take my hat off to him – who managed to set up a maintenance division as we'd asked, who nonetheless exceeded our initial hopes. We see people who feel comfortable in the workshops, who now feel themselves to be UTI personnel. It's the same for operations but operations were already done with the PPE, etc. So the fact of being part of UTI has nonetheless helped in taking the Moselle itinerary into account and will therefore help the users, of course.
Alain Chartier: How will it help the users?
Jean-François Moriceau: It's just that, when the user is on the Moselle, he doesn't really care whether he's in the Metz, Toul or Pont-à-Mousson sector. He's on the Moselle and his contact will be a person responsible for the Moselle along his route. (04:31 So will he necessarily be able to take advantage of it?) And as for us, it will free up quite a bit of time for us owing to the fact that the divisions have been put in place, etc. and that we have a supervisory team that will spend a little more time on developments and information with the user.
Alain Chartier: So this interaction throughout the entire Moselle network will benefit the user through the reliability of the network?
Jean-François Moriceau: The reliability of the network, of course, we could say that we also handled the reliability of the network before but now we have even more resources at our disposal (??? 04:57). We do have a significant budget on the Moselle. These interruptions to navigation, of course, mean ten days of disruption for the user but they are scheduled. It's better to have then days of disruption to the user when it's properly scheduled that to cause unexpected disruptions with successive breakdowns on our structures. So for him, there's a certain point to having these ten days, which we even find a little short, as shown by the fact that we are a little behind schedule on this work which is so important to our structures.
Alain Chartier: OK, so overall a positive assessment of these interruptions to navigation?
Jean-François Moriceau: Positive, not entirely satisfactory as we are behind schedule. We can't be entirely satisfied but it's positive overall and now we have to get down to work again because an interruption to navigation needs preparation a year in advance (N-1?). So we have to remember that we start all over again next year. We'll see you on 7 June on the gates at Richemont.
Alain Chartier: Great, thank you, Jean-François.