We have a love-hate relationship with the ferries here in the PNW.

They get us across the Puget Sound in a method which is (sometimes) faster and cheaper than driving, and the ride is delightfully scenic on nice days. Oh, but sometimes they’re late, or there’s a 3 hour wait, or the ferry schedule isn’t published, or it’s single-boat that nobody announced.

FerryWizard can’t make the ferries run on time, but it can keep you better informed.

Let’s say you’ve gone out to Poulsbo for Viking Fest and you want to get back home to your condo in Wallingford. No problem, you’re savvy, you have the WSDOT app, so you pull up the schedule for Bainbridge, which you think is the closest ferry. It says the next one is leaving in 30 minutes, which you think you can catch, but you’re not sure about traffic, what with the festival. It also says there are “83 spots remaining.” Is that a lot? Do 83 cars normally show up in the last 20 minutes? Is there ferry even on time? Would you be better off driving around? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

There’s a lot of unknowns there, and FerryWizard checks for all of them.

• Traffic: The wizard asks Google Maps(tm) for directions, so it’s getting the closest-to-realtime information about traffic on your route, so no guessing about traffic, or asking Google(tm) yourself.
• Fill Times: From there, the wizard knows when the ferries you could catch have filled at over the last month, so it knows when you probably need to arrive to catch a boat today.
• Late Ferries: Ferries are sometimes late, so that’s indicated right on the display. No more digging through menus to try to find out when the ferry you’re thinking about catching departed!

And like waving a magic wand, now you know the fastest way to cross the water.

Until we can come up with $12B to build a tunnel, this is pretty awesome. (A portion of the profits from FerryWizard will be donated to a fund dedicated to building a tunnel.)

Why is this better than the WSDOT app?

• You get a complete answer to the question, all in one place, integrating data from traffic, indications of spots remaining, and real time ferry departures.
• It’s more reliable than WSDOT’s app. We all remember November of 23, when the app and website were down for half the month because of an unspecified cyber threat. FerryWizard doesn’t rely on ONLY information provided directly by the ferries, so even if it can’t get straight ferry schedule info from WSDOT, it can make some educated guesses from other sources. It’s a wizard, remember?
• It puts the data in context. Instead of guessing about whether 83 spots remaining is enough for you to get a spot 20 minutes from now, FerryWizard makes a prediction based on history as compared against the current spots remaining.

It’s not flashy.

It’s not gorgeous. Heck, it’s not even “polished.” But it gets a simple answer quickly. Don’t we need more of that in our lives?

So next time you’re getting ready to cross the big water, ask FerryWizard what he would do in your shoes.