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A ferry (or ferryboat) is a boat or ship (a merchant vessel) used to carry (or ferry) primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi.
Ferries form a part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities and islands, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels. However, ship connections of much larger distances (such as over long distances in water bodies like the Mediterranean Sea) may also be called ferry services, especially if they carry vehicles.
Europe
The busiest seaway in the world, the English Channel, connects Great Britain and mainland Europe, sailing mainly to French ports, such as Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk, Dieppe, Cherbourg-Octeville, Caen, St Malo and Le Havre. Ferries from Great Britain also sail to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Ireland. Some ferries carry mainly tourist traffic, but most also carry freight, and some are exclusively for the use of freight lorries. In Britain, car-carrying ferries are sometimes referred to as RORO (roll-on, roll-off) for the ease by which vehicles can board and leave.
The busiest single ferry route (at least in terms of the number of departures) is across the northern part of Øresund, between Helsingborg, Scania, Sweden and Elsinore, Denmark. Before the Øresund bridge was opened in July 2000, car and "car & train" ferries departed up to seven times every hour. In 2013, this has been reduced, but a car ferry still departs from each harbor every 15 minutes during daytime.[1] The route is around 2.2 nautical miles (4.1 km; 2.5 mi) and the crossing takes 22 minutes. Today, all ferries on this route are constructed so that they do not need to turn around in the harbors. This also means that the ferries lack natural stems and sterns, since the vessels sail in both directions (rather than "sail backwards"). Due to the same circumstances, starboard and port-side are "dynamic" and depending of in what direction the ferry sails. Despite the short crossing, the ferries are equipped with restaurants (on 3 out of 4 ferries), cafeteria, kiosks and WC toilets. (Passengers without cars often make a "double or triple return" journey in the restaurants; for this, a common return ticket is sufficient. Passenger and bicycle passenger tickets are inexpensive compared with longer routes.)
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