In Q4 2018, ForSea inaugurated the two ferries Aurora and Tycho Brahe as the World’s largest battery-powered passenger ferries. Simultaneously, the ForSea brand was launched, and the introduction of battery-powered combined with the name change contributed significantly to an increase in the number of leisure passengers in the quarter. While the number of transported cars declined moderately, the strong growth in the number of transported trucks continued.

• The number of transported trucks increased by almost 2% in Q4 to 112,000 (2017: 109,000).
• The number of departures was 12,300 – slightly above the Q4 2017 level. Precision was very high, and capacity utilization on the car deck was almost on par with Q4 2017 despite a 3% increase in total capacity following the expansion of Hamlet’s sail plan.
• ForSea transported 260,000 cars in Q4 2018 (2017: 265,000), corresponding to a decline of 2%, while the total number of passengers increased to 1.5 million in Q4 2018 (2017: 1.44 million). The increase was mainly attributable to the many activities that have attracted an increasing number of leisure passengers until and following the change of the route’s brand to ForSea.
• Bus traffic on the route amounted to 2,400 transported units in Q4 2018 (2017: 2,600).
• The use of AutoBizz Smart increased by more than 3% compared to the same period last year.

”It was a festive day when we inaugurated our battery-powered ferries in November and simultaneously revealed our new name. The attention preceding and following these events has been overwhelming, and our many initiatives to make the route more environmentally friendly and exciting have yielded great results,” says Johan Röstin, CEO at ForSea. 

”The number of leisure passengers has increased, and we are on the right course in terms of adding a service and experience element to the qualities already possessed by the floating bridge, including environmental friendliness, high operational stability and precision. It is a formula that we will develop further,” says Johan Röstin.

The environmental effects of the two large ferries’ transition to battery operation on 8 November were immediate.