There is a constant need for improvement in inland water navigation based on the implementation of innovative technologies. This is necessary to ensure better traffic management, safer navigation, more economically profitable navigation, and to make inland navigation more reliable. This paper provides a rare a general review of currently used employed technologies of river information systems (RIS), the ways how they are used in practice, and the current state of development in Serbia. Throughout recent history, RIS technologies have been constantly improving, and accordingly, new legal documents have been drafted and published. These provide a formal-legal basis for each one of RIS technologies, and make their standardization easier. As the technology keeps progressing, the RIS concept should be able to adapt to it, and keep improving inland waterway transport, especially given that this mode of transport has much potential for the future.