This research mainly aims to upgrade the navigable channels established along the River Nile main waterway and its branches within Egypt to satisfy the inland river transportation requirements. The upgrade targets re-design of safe navigable channels along river straight and meandering segments. Also, the paper aims to identify the safest design approach developed so far. River main waterway and other 3 branches (Damietta branch, El-Rayah El-Behery, and El-Nubaria canal) were taken as study areas. Representative design ships used are of 100 m length and 15 and 11.6 m widths. Four design approaches; (Boogaard, 1992), (PIANC, 1997), (CCG, 2001), and (PIANC, 2014) for determining the navigable channel widths through river straight segments and extra widths through meanders were used. Results revealed that approaches (CCG, 2001) and (PIANC, 2014) gave safest channel widths for one-way and two-way straight channels respectively. Also, in sharp meanders, the extra width value given by (CCG, 2001) was preferred, while in normal meanders, the extra width value by (PIANC, 2014) was preferred. Finally, (CCG, 2001) and (PIANC, 2014) were strongly recommended to be applied in design because they provide the highest safety in both straight and meandering river segments compared with other design approaches considered in the present study.