Hello Mike, 
It is nice to start a week with some pleasant news. 
This brings back memories of a good old companies The Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Co. ! ! 
Thanks for your work, 
Albert

Excellent press release Mike. 
I will try the service on Tuesday to give support

All the regular commuters plus tourists will be delighted with the news . 
We are isolated without a reliable water transport system. 
Travel by road is harrowing and so slow ,getting worse every trip. 
Thank you for perststing in your efforts to get a better deal for our area Mike.

Congratulations and thank you for leading the campaign for fast ferries.

While at university I used both the then hydrofoil and ferry services. Studying engineering, the inefficiency and service quality drove me mad. Thus a few thoughts on that is really needed for a manly ferry service. 
 
With the new fast ferry service offering an 18 minute journey with a peak hour frequency of 27.5 minutes joining the standard ferry service offering essentially a 30 minute service with a 30 minute frequency five vessels are required with at least one spare of each to maintain the service.  
 
7 vessels are required to be operating or on call. Then further spare capacity is required for periods of heavy maintenance. 8 or 9 vessels are required. No doubt you are aware of this.  
 
Worse still the timetables don't mesh and thus the value of the faster service versus that of the slower service is very dependent on the passenger's arrival at the wharf. Fares need to pre-purchased to maximise fare value and thus deciding which service to take upon arrival at the wharf is presently inconsistent with maximising fare value. 
 
8 vessels (6 in service, 1 on call, 1 in maintenance) of a common size between the standard ferry and fast ferry could operate a 20 minute service with a 10 minute frequency with a 10 minute turn around time. The service would require 2 wharves (both sides of a pier with a common marshalling area). 
 
4 in-service vessels could provide a 20 minute service at 15 minute frequency with a 10 minute turn around time. 2 in-service vessels could provide a 20 minute service at a 25 minute frequency as long as loading unloading could be managed in 5 minutes (possible if not fully loaded.) 
 
A Company providing other services outside peak hour could run a very efficient service at a much lower cost than the $8.20 the fast ferry service will provide. Hopefully, the manly ferry service described above could operate with a fare and subsidy structure similar to that for busses.

Great news, thank you Mike for persisting on this matter. Well done !

Hi Mike, excuse this answer on the wrong item but i can`t access your blog anymore. Yes i agree we need hospitals but i am not certain Frenches Forest is the place, our traffic is extremely congested at peek hour now, i hate to think the mess it will cause when the hospital is built. My suggestion would be to build it on seaforth oval or fix up what we already have.