Tugs, barges and tour boats take priority in the locks. Knowing
where they are is most of knowing when not to go.
At the locks right now
checking…
On their way
Today, hour by hour
Longer bar = more commercial traffic in your way.
Aim for the short bars and the gaps; avoid the long ones.
loading…
Regular services
loading…
Vessels the feed shows running to a repeatable schedule.
Times are the median over the last 30 days, so treat them as "about then",
not a timetable.
Commercial lockages today
loading…
From the Corps lockage record, which publishes about 13
minutes after a lockage completes — so the most recent one may not be here
yet.
Why this is the reliable half
Commercial vessels identify themselves. AIS carries a name, a
position and hull dimensions, so there is no guessing whether something
is a boat or how big it is.
The Corps feed marks them. Every lockage record says whether it
was commercial, so the history is exact.
Recreational boats do neither — almost none broadcast AIS, and
the feed logs them as anonymous grouped loads with no count. That is why
the camera pages carry so many caveats and this one does not.
Two limits worth knowing: AIS cannot tell a vessel in the
chamber from one tied to the wall waiting, and the feed runs about 13
minutes behind.