Macau Matters | A Macau Island ferry service

Richard Whitfield

I have previously mentioned having a ferry service to circumnavigate Taipa and Coloane Islands in this column (July 2015) and it is worth discussing this idea in more detail now that there is mention that the Macau Government and Shun Tak are discussing a Macau leisure tours service with a terminal near the Ah Ma Temple.

I am sure that high quality leisure tours that offer a luxury experience would be very positive for Macau, but I feel it would be a great waste to purely focus on this kind of coastal experience and neglect development of a more mass market Island Ferry Service that could be a much larger tourist attraction that also yields a much broader social impact.

I would like to see a more mass transit focused coastal ferry that goes all round Macau that lets both tourists and locals get on and off at a wide variety of points of interest. I see a ferry route the circumnavigates Macau starting from the landing point of the Hong Kong-Macau bridge and ending at Ilha Verde. Along the way it could have stops at Fisherman’s Wharf, the Taipa Ferry Terminal, Hac Sa Beach (on Coloane Island), Cheoc Van Beach, Coloane Village, the Yacht mooring area (near the University of Macau Hengqin Campus), Broadway (adjacent to Galaxy Macau), the Taipa end of the Sai Wan Bridge, the Ah Ma Temple, and 1-2 stops along the inner Harbor. These stops are all potential points of interest for both tourists and locals. The service could use a time based ticketing system that lets passengers get on and off ferries wherever they want.

Because of the shallow waters around Macau, the ferries need to be shallow draft (and thus relatively small). They should also be very “hi tech” in keeping with Macau being a “city of the future”. They could be largely solar and wind powered, and with some research and development I believe they could be largely driverless. In collaboration with the considerable renewable energy and yacht building expertise in the Pearl River Delta, such ferries could be a whole new export industry for Macau.

Technically, using a mix of passive and active control strategies it is quite possible to fully automate the management of the boat sails so that they provide the optimal forward thrust irrespective of the direction in which a sailing yacht is moving – see saildrone.com, for example. I am surprised more yachts do not use this approach. Partially solar powered ferries are also already in service.

Smaller, driverless, renewable energy powered ferries means that there could be lots of them so that the service is very frequent and convenient. Additionally, such ferries would only need small docking infrastructure – floating pontoons should do – so that the whole system is relatively inexpensive, but may involve a research and development effort that Macau can afford.

I believe that a high frequency Island Ferry Service that stops at many places of interest could become a big tourist (and local) attraction for Macau that also brings many other benefits. It takes demand from buses to reduce our road congestion and vehicle pollution. It spreads tourists around Macau lessening their concentration, while at the same time increasing Macau’s tourist carrying capacity. Small local businesses in many diverse locations would see more tourists to potentially increase their revenues. Finally, it could establish a research and development culture and ferry service expertise that can be exported and built upon.

PS: Robo-taxis have arrived! Waymo was recently granted a license to run a fleet of autonomous, driveless taxis in Pheonix, Arizona. When do you think they will be granted a taxi license in Macau?