Pinglu Canal prepares for pre-launch "comprehensive assessment"

On August 12, the full-scale ship trial for the backbone project of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, the Pinglu Canal, officially commenced. The 134.2-kilometer-long waterway underwent its most critical "baseline examination" before opening for navigation. Previously, the electronic navigation chart of the Pinglu Canal had been launched on the Guangxi Digital Water Transport Integration Platform and the Guangxi Water Transport River-Sea Integration Dispatch Platform, further supporting the goal of achieving navigation by September as scheduled.

On the morning of the 12th, four trial ships departed from the Xinfu Water Comprehensive Service Area of the Pinglu Canal, covering mainstream navigation ship types such as 5,000-ton heavy-load and empty-load vessels, 3,000-ton heavy-load vessels, and 1,000-ton heavy-load vessels. They navigated through the Shaping River section, the Watershed section, the Qinjiang mainstream section, the Qinzhou urban section, and the estuary section, traveling both downstream and upstream. The trials were conducted in phases to complete navigation verification under normal and adverse conditions, test the effectiveness of navigation aids along the entire route, and simultaneously carry out comprehensive tests on major tasks such as dual-line ship lock passage at three major hubs, ship meeting in bends, overtaking in the same direction, turning maneuvers, tidal docking and departure, and nighttime navigation. Additionally, preliminary tests were conducted for six high-risk adverse conditions, including hub water discharge, tributary flood convergence, and strong wind and tide overlap. The visibility, light quality, and layout effectiveness of 206 representative navigation aids along the route were also tested during day and night.

The trial ships were equipped with devices such as onboard Beidou positioning systems, drone flow field monitoring, mooring cable tension sensors, and main engine condition data collectors, enabling real-time collection of hundreds of core data points, including navigation tracks, drift angles, roll angles, flow speeds, and distances between ships. The construction team simultaneously established a multi-unit maritime-construction-emergency response protection network, implementing spatiotemporal traffic control, emergency speedboat escort, and comprehensive contingency plans for collisions, grounding, oil spills, and overboard incidents.

While the waterway "runs data," the electronic navigation chart integrates data on bridges, docks, obstacles, anchorages, and service areas along the entire route, providing core functional services such as positioning, early warning, and querying for safe ship operations. It achieves a unified overview of resources for the Xijiang shipping trunk line, Pinglu Canal, and Beibu Gulf waterway. The full-scale ship trial has thoroughly tested the hard compatibility of the waterway, ship locks, and navigation aids, while the electronic navigation chart provides soft support for dispatch and early warning. The Pinglu Canal is advancing with a dual-track closed-loop approach of "hard testing + digital base map," leaving a replicable technical model for the opening of river-sea intermodal transport in September and similar canal projects.