Ferryboat
Ferryboat is a transit mode comprised of vessels carrying passengers and/or vehicles over a body of water, and that are generally steam or diesel-powered.
When at least one terminal is within an urbanized area, it is urban ferryboat service. Such service excludes international, rural, rural interstate, island, and urban park ferries.
Transit ferryboat service is provided in about 30 metropolitan areas and small cities, where offshore islands, bays, and wide rivers preclude any other type of service at a reasonable cost. In a few places, service may operate between two points on the same shore.
In a few far-northern areas, service does not operate in winter. Service may occasionally be curtailed during periods of heavy fog or severe storms for safety reasons. Ferry service is unique among public transit modes in that it is subject to U.S. Coast Guard operating and safety regulations.
Types of Service
Most ferryboats operate non-stop over short distances in local service, but in a few cases, a stop may be made at an intervening island. A number of routes in the Boston, MA, New York, NY, Providence, RI, San Francisco, CA, and Seattle, WA areas are several miles long.
Express service may operate in peak-hours bypassing intervening islands. Alternatively, some trips may be operated by high-speed or passenger-only ferries compared to the regular ferry, which could be considered as express service of a sort.
Fixed Guideways
By federal law, ferryboats are considered a form of fixed-guideway transit. Each trip may take a slightly different course due to water conditions, but the beginning and ending points are fixed.
Types of Vehicles
A ferryboat is a vessel for carrying passengers and/or vehicles over a body of water. The vessel is generally a steam or diesel-powered conventional ferry vessel. It may also be a hovercraft, hydrofoil or other high speed vessel.
A wide range of boats are used in ferry service, but there are two basic types.
Vehicle ferries have at least one deck for vehicles, with additional decks for passengers. The largest are in the Seattle, WA area, and are over 460 feet long, accommodating 2,500 passengers and 218 vehicles. Such ferries are normally square-ended to allow vehicle access and egress.
Passenger-only ferries have only passenger decks, though they may also have space for bicycles. They can range from small boats about 50 feet long holding about 50 people up to the 310-foot long Staten Island ferries in New York, which can accommodate 6,000 people. Because they don't have vehicle decks, they need not be square-ended and may have pointed bows and side-loading. Catamaran (double hull) and hydrofoil (where the vehicle skims the surface of the water) styles may be used for high-speed services.
Water taxis are very small passenger-only ferries (about 50 feet or less) that may operate in both fixed-route and on-demand service, depending on the time of day and patronage levels. They can load and unload very quickly and operate very frequently, sometimes to several different points around a harbor or along a river.
Power Sources and Fuel Consumption
Almost all ferries are powered by diesel, and because of their massive bulk, have relatively low fuel efficiency--about 0.07 miles per gallon in the year 2002. However, this is an average of widely varying sizes of boats with trips hindered by opposing currents.
Operating Practices
The largest passenger-only ferries usually operate on 30-60 minute headways while smaller passenger-only ferries can operate more frequently. Multiple docks at the largest terminals allow frequencies as low as 10-15 minutes.
Water taxis, because of their very small size, may be able to operate every 5 minutes or so.
Accessibility
A station is a public transportation passenger facility.
An accessible station is a station which provides ready access, and does not have physical barriers that prohibit and/or restrict access by individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use wheelchairs.
An accessible vehicle is a public transportation revenue vehicle that does not restrict access, is usable, and provides allocated space and/or priority seating for individuals who use wheelchairs.
Some ferries use floating docks that rise and fall with changing water levels. Where water levels are more stable, the dock may be a permanent structure on land. In either case a gangway and a vehicle ramp must be deployed either from the boat or from the dock. On the busiest ferry routes, a terminal building may have multiple boarding levels, with gangways deployed for passengers from the building's upper levels in the same manner as is done at airports.
Wheelchair accessibility depends on the width and railings on the gangways, on the steepness of the slope on the gangways resulting from very high or low water levels, and on any small gaps in vehicle access ramps (if that is the only means of access). Special assistance may be necessary in some cases. When access is directly from a terminal building, elevators within that building would also be necessary. Some ferries are not accessible due to steps at the ends of gangways.
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