Passenger ferry
A passenger ferry is a watercraft used to transport people across bodies of water. It is a vehicle that is used to transfer traffic from one bank to the other on the waterway and is treated as a ferry by the competent authority .
In the past, when there were hardly any bridges or tunnels over large rivers, passenger ferries were a central part of travel routes. In order to be able to do trade, however, larger ferries were operated on important routes as cargo ferries for carts and carriages , which correspond to today's car ferries.
Today, however, passenger ferries are mainly used for tourism.
An example of a modern passenger ferry is the Rheinhausen ferry across the Rhine between Speyer and Rheinhausen . It used to be part of the first regular postal route in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from Innsbruck to Brussels .
Drive type
There are hand-operated ferries (e.g. as row boats), cable ferries and motor ferries. In the case of cable ferries, a distinction is made between low and high cable ferries, see also Gierseilfähre . Ferries powered by diesel engines and propellers also use the current in some cases, just like the cable ferries.
Passenger transport as part of the public transport system
In cities that are by the sea or on a larger river (including cities with many canals), passenger ferry connections play an important role in local transport. They are comparatively less expensive than tunnels or bridges and enable a direct connection between two banks.
Germany
In the two largest German cities of Berlin (see ferry traffic in Berlin , a row ferry is particularly worth mentioning here ) and Hamburg ( port ferries ), different ferry lines are integrated into the public transport system of the BVG and HVV . In Hamburg, ferry connections across the Alster used to be important for inner-city passenger traffic and were included in the network tariff system. Also to Dresden , in Rostock and Kiel ferries are part of the public transport system.
Along the Rhine , Main , Elbe and Danube there are a large number of regularly offered ferry connections, but these also serve tourist needs and have no significant inner-city transport function in Düsseldorf , Cologne or Frankfurt am Main , for example .
There are a total of approx. 850 passenger ferries in Germany and in 2008 15.9 million passengers were transported by sea. A further 13.1 million travelers were on board abroad. Most of the passengers within Germany had the ports in Lower Saxony (10.3 million), the international traffic recorded the most passengers from Schleswig-Holstein (9.2 million).
Switzerland
In Switzerland, passenger ferries often take on important tasks in the local transport system. For example in the cities of Zurich , Geneva or Lugano , which are located on the lakes of the same name.
International
In Amsterdam , the ferries there operate on the IJ . Passenger ferries are also operated as part of the local public transport system in Paris on the Seine and London on the Thames . In the lagoon city of Venice , the so-called vaporetti even take over a large part of public transport.
The Älvsnabben passenger ferry crosses the Göta älv and is part of the local public transport network in Gothenburg .
In New York City , the free Staten Island Ferry , which also transports cars, plays an important role in commuting between the districts of Staten Island and Manhattan .
In Hong Kong , the Star Ferry connects Hong Kong Island with Kowloon , which is separated by Victoria Harbor , as part of the local public transport system .
Curiosities
Probably one of the smallest ferries in Germany runs in Schleswig-Holstein on the federal waterway Krückau - the Kronsnest ferry for a maximum of eight people is actually a small wooden boat that is moved forward by sculling by hand. Until the middle of the last century it was the only way to get to the other side of the bank in a reasonable time for almost 400 years, but was reopened as a tourist attraction in 1993. In Moritzdorf on Rügen a rowing boat operates as a Moritzdorf ferry across the Baaber Bek. The only German rowing ferry in regular service runs in Berlin across the Müggelspree .
