In accordance with the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century , a comprehensive inventory of existing ferry operations in the United States and its possessions has been developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). This effort has produced a comprehensive, detailed and current set of data and information regarding ferry operators, routes, terminals and vessels that until now were unavailable, incomplete or insufficient.

The geographic scope of the inventory of existing ferry operations includes the United States and its possessions, encompassing the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the remaining territories, commonwealths and other political units of the United States. In addition to ferry operators providing domestic service within the U.S. and its possessions, operators providing services to or from the U.S. and its possessions and a foreign country were also been included.

The specific types of ferry operations that were included within the scope of the study are those providing itinerant, fixed route, common carrier passenger and/or vehicle (RoRo) ferry service. Railroad car float operations, now rare but in the past more common in the U.S., are also included within the scope of the survey. Ferry operations that are exclusively non-itinerant (e.g., "cruise-to-nowhere" services), excursion services (e.g., whale watches, casino boats, day cruises, dinner cruises, etc.), passenger only water taxi services not operating on a fixed route, LoLo (Lift-on/Lift-off) freight/auto carrier services, or long distance passenger only cruise ship services were not included within the scope of the survey.

Of a total universe of 224 ferry operators identified, 198 (88.4%) completed and returned the National Ferry Study Survey that was distributed to ferry operators in early March, 2000. The survey period extended from March 1, 2000 to September 30, 2000. The universe of 224 ferry operators provide ferry service on 487 nonstop ferry route segments, comprising 352 ferry routes, and serving 578 ferry terminal locations with 677 ferry vessels.

Numerous detailed data elements describing the services provided by these ferry operators were collected as part of the survey effort. A relational database format was utilized throughout the collection and processing of the many related data elements, and provides for the reporting of the information at various levels, such as by operator, route, ferry terminal, or vessel. In addition, a fully georeferenced database of ferry terminals and ferry route segments has also been developed to aid in describing the location of the various ferry services and facilities throughout the U.S.. This information is also available on the CD-ROM.

A user-friendly form-based interface has been developed in Microsoft Access, which allows users to review and query the inventory of existing ferry routes, operators and associated attribute data elements. A User Guide describing the various functions provided by this form-based interface is presented on the following pages. Both the data and the user interface are being distributed on CD-ROM along with a "run-time" version of the Microsoft Access 97 relational database software. Distributing the ferry inventory data in this manner will provide all users running Windows 95/98 or Windows NT operating systems the ability to review and query the National Ferry Database, regardless of whether they have a full retail version of Microsoft Access 97 or Microsoft Access 2000.

For more information contact:

U.S. Department of Transportation

Federal Highway Administration Planning and Environment Core Business Unit

Nassif Building

400 7th Street, S.W.