Queen of Burnaby's reduced license: news story

[Low Light Mike]

from Powell River Peak newspaper, on August 16, 2006:
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www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17063280&BRD=1998&PAG=461&dept_id=221589&rfi=6

08/16/2006
Licence levels delay riders
Luke Brocki - Peak Reporter

Understaffing of the Queen of Burnaby's first run on August 5 meant dozens of passengers had to wait in the Westview terminal for the next sailing.
This is the second such occurrence in under a month on the Westview-Little River crossing. Ten vehicles, two motorcycles and two walk-on passengers were left overnight in Comox on July 14 as the ferry left half full due to safety regulations.


"We were going over to Nanaimo for a soccer tournament on the eight [am] ferry to make the 12:45 kickoff," said Cyndi Pallen, one of the stranded passengers. "The next ferry wasn't leaving until 12."

Pallen arrived at the terminal 20 minutes prior to the scheduled sailing, but was told she could not board because the maximum passenger level based on the available crew had been reached.

"We finally got there at 2:45, missing the first game. It causes a lot of stress. If the Powell River ferry services were more prepared for the long weekends, we wouldn't find ourselves in this predicament."

Each vessel in the BC Ferries fleet is governed by Transport Canada regulations having to do with evacuating the ferry. The Queen of Burnaby has two licences, a B licence for 324 passengers and 18 crew, and an A licence for 659 passengers and 25 crew.

The company was unprepared to upgrade to the A licence and meet the demand of passengers wanting to cross that morning, said Deborah Marshall, director of media relations with BC Ferries.

"You have to call in seven employees at short notice," she told the Peak. "Sometimes it is very difficult to find seven people at home on a Saturday morning."

She said the senior master and marine superintendent analyze past traffic statistics and consider current events when setting the crewing levels. They decided on an A licence for the Friday, Sunday and Monday of the long BC Day weekend, but decided to run the ferry at half capacity on Saturday, said Marshall.

"If the demand is there, they should provide the service," said Dan Parsons, a driver left behind after the ferry reached capacity. "The car in front of me got on. . . they should have had more staff."

Marshall failed to provide statistics of how often such incidents occur but promised to look into the matter. "It's certainly brought it to light," she said. "Our operations people are aware of the issues that happened and are actively looking at licence levels."

Wanting to clear up confusion about the use of commuter tickets, Marshall said customers are supposed to get boarding passes through the ticket booth.

"It had been the practice before to hand the deckhand the commuter tickets as they're boarding, but since the Queen of the North incident we've been tightening up our policies to ensure we have an accurate passenger count."

Ferry commissioner Martin Crilly told the Peak he also asked BC Ferries for information about the frequency of understaffing and expects to discuss the incidents with the company at a meeting in Victoria at the end of August.

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[Low Light Mike]

I think this continuing story is a sign of things to come,on this route & others, as BCFS embraces more cost-cutting.

Whether this is an unfair low-service-level, or a fact-of-coast-life, you can be the judge. We got a wide spectrum of opinion on this board about issues like these. I suppose the one thing we can agree on is that this down-licensing and cancelled-sailings trend is something that represents the fundamental viewpoints on what/who the Ferry service is supposed to be & do.

ps: re the above news story: Should a travelling team expect to show-up at a ferry terminal on a long-weekend, just 20 minutes before sailing time, and expect to get on??

[Airchime]

I remember some years back this exact same thing happened on Route 2 on a Sunday!! One of the ships left the mob scene at Departure Bay with no cars on the galley decks. What made it into the news was a passenger took pictures of the empty traffic lanes and promptly contacted all Lower Mainland media the next day. The company fired back with their A license and B license explanation, but it did little to appease the passengers who missed that sailing.

That's too bad it had to happen up there (with no extra ship or crew on stand-by). If there was a soccer tournament in Nanaimo, wouldn't they be expecting more traffic than usual?

[Low Light Mike]

airchime said:

If there was a soccer tournament in Nanaimo, wouldn't they be expecting more traffic than usual?

.....only if the team bothered to let BC Ferries know, ahead of time. My guess is that the team just showed up, expecting service. For us customers/users, I think there's a balance between expecting that service will be provided, and in giving the company a heads-up that a large group will be coming.

BC Ferries usually does a good job on minor routes in publicising upcoming heavy usage re sports tournaments and local paving jobs, etc.

[Curtis]

Oh for crying out loud! They should get the message...IT'S THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER USE THE B-LISCENSE!!!!!!!

[Neil]

Not so simple.
The schedules for the Gulf Islands are fine tuned to fit the days of the week. The Powell River-Comox route, even in summer, can be really under utilized; historically it's been one of the most heavily subsidised ones in the system. There's four crossings a day, all year, needed or not- they have to cut corners somehow.

[Curtis]

It really is difficult to get this organized. They need more reservation routes besides the Major Routes