PORTLAND, Maine — Average daily ridership on the new Maine-Nova Scotia ferry jumped from June to July, according to the latest breakdown of arrivals and departures on the previously troubled line. But the ferry is likely still operating below capacity.
In July, 5,194 people arrived in Portland and 5,619 departed from the city to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, on the ship operated by Bay Ferries Ltd., states a passenger count released by the city of Portland. In June, 1,534 arrived in Portland and 2,082 departed, according to the city, although the ferry ran for only half the month.
Broken down by day, that’s 349 riders per day in July, whereas it was 241 per day in June, an increase of 45 percent.
This increased ridership means a revenue bump for Portland — which brought in $32,529.50 in passenger fees in July and $11,259 in June. And for Canadian operator Bay Ferries, which took over the route after the previous ferry owner, Nova Star Cruises, filed for bankruptcy in April after two years of missing its projected passenger counts.
However, that’s less than the city got from the previous service during the same period last year. The city made $55,293.25 from ferry fees in July 2015, although $3,450 of that came from moving commercial trucks, which are not transported on the new Bay Ferries ship. Last July, 4,509 people arrived in Portland on the Nova Star ferry and 8,774 departed. The ship carried 1,418 small automobiles in and 1,953 out, according to the city’s passenger count.
Nova Star Cruises owed $62,000 to Portland and $362,000 to Maine-based companies when it filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada.
Among the changes made by Bay Ferries was the introduction of a smaller ship: a high-speed catamaran that can carry 700 passengers and 200 vehicles, according to the the company website. The new ship carries fewer people and cars than the Nova Star Cruises’ one did and also makes the passage faster, but nonetheless it was probably not full many days in July.
Dividing the passenger counts by the number of days in the month suggests that on average 168 people and 51 cars or small trucks rode into Portland on the ferry each day last month and 181 passengers and 55 vehicles were carried out. But actual daily passenger counts may vary widely from this average.
While operated by Nova Star Cruises, the U.S.-to-Canada ferry moved 59,000 passengers in 2014 and 52,000 in 2015, well shy of the company’s projection of 100,000 per year.
Bay Ferries, which will receive the equivalent of $25 million in subsidies from the provincial government of Nova Scotia, previously said that it has not and does not intend to make passenger count projections.