(Unfair) Fare Increases on Washington State Ferries

Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at 12:04 pm by retrorider

Ferries are part of everyday life for many motorcyclists in Washington state. Motorcyclists enjoy reduced fares and priority boarding on most ferry runs. Recently the Washington State Ferries has proposed a rate increase of 14% for motorcycles. At the same time they are proposing a 6% increase in the fares for cars and trucks.

The substantial fare boost for motorcycle riders was long overdue, Washington State Ferries spokeswoman Susan Harris-Huether said. Motorcycles have for years been considered one-fifth the size of a typical car or truck. WSF would now like to update that estimate to one-fourth.

“Motorcycles have grown in size over the years, and so has the number of them,” Harris-Huether said. “They’re not tucked into the nooks and crannies anymore.”

Sure motorcycles have gotten marginally larger over the years but cars, particularly SUV’s, have increased more. So why are motorcyclists getting hit with a bigger increase?

A petition has been started to oppose the excessive increase in motorcycle fares and to urge the WSF to make any increase in fares equitable for all ferry users. The petition is available at: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/WSF_Moto_Fares

8 Comments

I’d like to agree with you but what matters to the Ferry companies is “footprint”, not overall size. While SUV’s are large, they have NOT grown more than bikes proportionately. How many full-dress Harleys could you reasonably park in the same space as a Ford Expedition? 3 maybe 4! There’s probably a fairer way to arrive at the correct fare (pun intended), maybe taking into account weight or length/width or model, but those are hard to measure quickly. Face it, you’ve been getting by on a “reduced” fare for years and now that you’re being asked to pay your fair share, you’re getting all worked up! You’re already getting a big discount, be careful about drawing attention to a subject that might get enough scrutiny to cause the fare to be increased to half of a car (2 wheels vs. 4).

Comment by rhino | January 19th, 2006 12:40 pm | Permalink

Car and truck fares are based on vehicles with footprints up to 8.5 x 20 ft. I think I can get 5 full-dress H-D’s in that space. With a more typical mix of bikes I’d bet I could fit 6 or more. Ms. Harris-Huether’s statement not withstanding, bikes are frequently loaded into places that are unusable by other vehicles.

Comment by retrorider | January 19th, 2006 12:53 pm | Permalink

Six or more? What the F are you smoking? You can’t park ‘em like sardines. Get real, you have to leave room around the bike for people to get on and off as well as parking them facing forward, so when the ferry docks, they don’t all fall over. I just measured my Bandit 1200 with bags, give or take a few inches, 4 ft by 8 ft (add at least a foot on all sides for reasonable clearance). Your math is wacked buddy! 4 MAX!!!! (Which is what the woman is asking for, for God’s sake). As for usuable space, if you can fit a bike there it’s usable space!

Comment by rhino | January 19th, 2006 2:09 pm | Permalink

RE: “How many full-dress Harleys”

How many full-dress Harleys do people use as their daily-commuter? None or few? Lkely most of the bikes are Ninjas, Monsters, various 750cc nakeds… and Burgman scooters.

Comment by anonymous | January 25th, 2006 6:05 pm | Permalink

Look what you commute on ….. a Futura. Look what I commute on …. a Bandit 12. What does Retro commute on? I bet it’s not small. If you’re going to play the SUV card in an argument, it needs to be compared to something equivalent with two-wheels, it needs to be apples to apples. If you’re talking Ninjas, then you’re talking Carollas.

Try parking 4 bikes in a normal parking space sometime. If you do it, it’s hard to get on or off your bike without bumping into something. When you see bikes parked in normal spaces, there are usually only 2 and sometimes 3. Even the smallest bikes are 3 ft wide by 7 ft long and you still need room to park them and get off the bike. I stand by my assessment of 4 bikes to one car as the MAXIMUM, which is what the ferry service wants. I think their demands are quite reasonable. We deserve to be treated fairly, not entitled.

Comment by rhino | January 26th, 2006 9:29 am | Permalink

This is a long reply.

In the interest of full disclosure, I ride a VTX1800 Retro (hence the nick) and I am actually not a regular ferry commuter so the fare increase will not directly impact me personally.

Let’s pretend that I am a ferry operator. Because the number of deck units (spaces available on the deck for cars, trucks or motorcycles) is finite, it is my objective to maximize the revenue per deck unit. Looking at the Seattle/Bremerton run, a very popular commuter run, the current round trip fare for a vehicle and driver is $21.20. The current round trip fare for a motorcycle and driver is $9.20.

This being a commuter run, I am going to assume that the typical vehicle is single-occupancy. I think it is also safe to assume that the typical motorcycle is single occupancy. Furthermore, I am going to assume that most ferry users make a round trip each day.

WSF defines one unit of deck space as 8.5 x 20 feet. Each deck unit will accomodate one car or light truck or, under current WSF formulas, 5 motorcycles. For the sake of argument, I will grant WSF’s assumption that motorcycles have increased in size. So now each deck unit can fit only 4 motorcycles. Let’s run the numbers using the current fares:

For a Car or Truck: $21.20 x 1 Vehicles/Deck Unit = $21.20
For Motorcycles: $9.20 x 4 Vehicles/Deck Unit = $36.80

I’m making $15.60 more per deck unit on motorcycles.

Now, let’s apply the proposed fare increase. For this run, the proposed round trip vehicle fare will be $22.50 and the proposed round trip motorcycle fare will be $10.50.

My revenue per deck unit is now:

For a Car or Truck: $22.50 x 1 Vehicles/Deck Unit = $22.50
For Motorcycles: $10.50 x 4 Vehicles/Deck Unit = $42.00

Note that I have not even attempted to address the fact that motorcycles are loaded into areas that cannot accomodate cars and therefore do not displace cars in direct proportion to the number of motorcycles. Any motorcycles that do not displace cars are basically free revenue.

What’s the conclusion?

I make LOTS of money on motorcycles. In fact, if I were the ferry operator, I would want as many motorcycles as I could get on board to maximize my revenue per deck unit. Even at current fares, I make much more per deck unit on motorcycles than I do on vehicles. Even if I said I can only park 3 motorcycles per deck unit, I STILL make more money on motorcycles.

Some argue that because motorcycles get “first-on, first-off” privileges we should not “rock the boat”. I don’t think so; not when the ferries are making a lot of money on motorcycle fares. Remember, as a ferry operator I want MORE motorcycles. So I would encourage people to ride motorcycles so that I can increase my revenue. How might I encourage more motorcyclists, my most profitable customers, to take the ferry?

Oh, I would offer them perks; for example, letting them go to the front of the line. After all, the more motorcycles I get loaded on that boat, the more money I make. So why not let my highest-revenue generating customers get on first? That’s just good business.

Comment by Retrorider | January 26th, 2006 10:32 am | Permalink

There was a major assumption on my part which only your recent fare quote brought to light. I assumed based on the previous 1 to 5 ratio referenced, that the fares already refleected this ratio, but apparently, based on your fare quotes it seems motorcycles are already paying half (not one fifth) as much as cars. That being the case and based on the spokeswoman’s comments, the question is: If 4 bikes (the currently proposal) equals one car, why aren’t the fares for bikes 25% of the fares for cars. There is some piece of missing information here that doesn’t fit. If the Ferry service is making almost twice as much money on bikes, then not only is a fare increase unwarranted, but a reduction is in order.

Comment by rhino | January 26th, 2006 11:33 am | Permalink

There are two components to the fare: the driver/rider and the vehicle. Fares for drivers/rider/walk-ons are all the same. The 20% (or 25%) ratio for motorcycles applies only to the vehicle portion of the fare.

The net result is that WSF makes more on motorcycles because they collect one driver/rider fare for every bike and they can fit (at least 4) bikes in the same space as a car. So that’s four rider fares per space vs. 1 driver fare per space with a car. If you are riding two-up it’s even better for WSF.

There is much more room for bodies than cars on a ferry, so no worries about the passenger count or running out of passenger room.

Comment by Retrorider | January 26th, 2006 1:41 pm | Permalink

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