Over the past few centuries, the Oise has played an important role as an inland shipping waterway connecting the Seine (and thus Paris) with the coastal regions of northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Robert Louis Stevenson described his canoeing trip on the Oise in his first published book,
An Inland Voyage. With the projected construction of the
Seine-Nord Europe Canal, a high-capacity water transport system currently in development, the Oise will be linked at
Janville, north of
Compiègne, with the high-capacity
Canal Dunkerque-Escaut, east of
Arleux. The Seine-Nord Europe Canal will replace the old
Canal de Saint-Quentin and the current
Canal du Nord, the capacity of which is far below standard. When the new Seine-Nord connection is complete, it will allow large vessels to transport goods from the Seine, and thus Paris and its surrounding area, to the ports of
Dunkirk,
Antwerp and
Rotterdam. Part of the overall project consists of upgrading the river Oise itself between Creil and Compiègne, a project called MAGEO (''Mise au gabarit européen de l'Oise'') that was put out to public consultation in 2013. Some bends need to be eased and bridges raised to meet the requirements of a
class Vb inland waterway. ==Tributaries==