B.C. Ferries to test half-price vehicle fares

Corporation wants to shift passengers to less busy sailings

Half-price fares for vehicles will be available next month as B.C. Ferries testdrives its ability to shift passengers to less busy sailings.

The savings will be available on some sailings from mid-November to the week before Christmas. Drivers and passengers will still pay full fare.

B.C. Ferries president Mike Corrigan noted even with passengers paying full fare, the discount still means a substantial savings. The discount on the vehicle fare between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen, for example, would be $27.70. Between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert, the savings are as much as $168.

The discount will apply on all north coast sailings between Nov. 15 and Dec. 20. On the south coast, savings will be available on midday sailings Monday through Thursday and on Saturdays, Nov. 16 to Dec. 19.

It is available to cars, motorcycles, trucks, SUVs, vans or recreational vehicles (first 20 feet of vehicle length only), but not commercial vehicles.

Corrigan said the discount initiative will help the corporation to better under- stand whether pricing changes can be used to shift passengers to off-peak sailings.

“We all know the ferries are very busy during peak times,” such as Friday evening before a long weekend, he said. “But if we can flatten out that demand, then people won’t have the same waits they may otherwise have faced.”

“At the same time, we can run the company more efficiently from a cost perspective, personnel, the number of vessels needed, that sort of thing.”

B.C. Ferries offered passenger fare discounts on some southern route sailings Sept. 8 to Oct. 15. Preliminary results suggest the discounts played a role in increasing year-over-year traffic and helped to reduce congestion at terminals by encouraging foot and vehicle passengers to travel on off-peak sailings.

Corrigan said the experiments with discounts will be important in 2017, when the corporation plans to implement a new pricing structure, starting with the smaller routes. “We are going to take a pretty cautious approach to it,” Corrigan said. “People have been using the same pricing regime on B.C. Ferries since 1960.”

Until then, however, the corporation has committed to raising fares no more than 1.9 per cent a year, the rate of inflation.

For more information on which sailings will have discounted vehicle fares, go to bcferries.com.