Go Figure: Get on board with these numbers about B.C. ferries

Nothing says summer in B.C. more than standing on the deck of a ferry with the sun and wind in your face. Here are a few notable numbers around this quintessentially West Coast mode of transportation.

BC Ferries is one of the world’s largest ferry operators, running 37 vessels, 47 terminals, 25 routes and more than 185,000 sailings per year. The company carried 22.6 million passengers and 9.6 million vehicles in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. Passenger traffic rose 4.9 percent over the previous year and vehicle traffic, 1.9 percent.

In the six months from April 1 to September 30, 2024, 806 out of 102,893 scheduled sailings were cancelled, or 0.8 percent.

19.9% of sailings were overloaded, meaning at least some passengers had to wait for a subsequent sailing. Almost half—48.4 percent—of the sailings on major routes between the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast were overloaded.

In its first year of operations ending August 2024, rival Hullo Ferries carried more than 400,000 foot passengers between Vancouver and Nanaimo on 3,200 sailings. Its two catamarans travel at speeds of up to 38 knots or 70.4 kph.

The Ministry of Transportation operates 13 inland ferries around B.C. The Kootenay Lake ferry, which travels 8 kilometres between Balfour and Kootenay Bay, is the world’s longest free car ferry.

79.3 percent of sailings departed on time (within 10 minutes of scheduled departure).

The B.C. government contracts out 8 smaller coastal ferry routes to private operators.

Sources: BC Ferry Corp., Government of B.C., Hullo Ferries