New Victoria-built app helps decide which BC Ferries sailing to take

About to head to the ferry terminal?

There’s a new Victoria-built tool that is aiming to take some of the guesswork out of travelling with BC Ferries.

Next Ferry is a free web app that uses ferry capacity data to show travellers which sailings still have room, how quickly they are filling up and when a sailing may be close to reaching capacity.

The tool was created by Neil Tran, founder and creative director of Victoria-based digital studio Leap.

Rather than simply displaying available deck space, Next Ferry tracks how a sailing is filling over time and presents that information in a more straightforward way for travellers deciding when to leave home.

For example, the app can show that a sailing is 85% full, how much that number has increased recently and an estimate of when it could reach capacity.

Users can also select a sailing and receive an alert when its available vehicle space drops below a certain point.

“Nobody wakes up wanting deck-space percentages. They want to know when to leave the house,” Tran said in the release.

“A number tells you where a sailing is. The slope tells you what to do.”

Next Ferry covers 12 BC Ferries routes, including routes serving Swartz Bay, Tsawwassen, Horseshoe Bay, Departure Bay, Duke Point, Langdale and the Gulf Islands.

The service works through a web browser on phones and computers, meaning there is nothing to download and no account is required.

Users can also add the site to their phone’s home screen and use it more like a traditional app, including receiving alerts.

According to the developers, sailing information is refreshed every minute using data from the community-run BC Ferries API.

Next Ferry is independent and is not affiliated with BC Ferries. The developers recommend travellers continue to confirm their sailing information directly with BC Ferries before heading to the terminal.