The Steamship Authority is looking to bring in an outside company to see if its plan to roll out a new reservation system is plausible over the next year.
Leaders at the ferry line this week said they were considering firms that could help guide the process, which was initially aimed at wrapping up with a new reservation system this year. Issues with the existing 1990s ticketing system have been one of the largest customer complaints, but the new system has been hit with delays.
“We are looking at trying to find an outside assessor to take a look at our system, take a look at where we are now and give us some guidance on are we on the right path,” Steamship general manager Alex Kryska said at a technology subcommittee meeting Tuesday.
The ferry line head also explained his frustrations and hopes to Islanders who attended a budget forum at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center that same day. An attendee asked if the Steamship was satisfied with the system being developed by E-Dea, an Italian company hired by the authority last year for $5.7 million.
“To be perfectly honest, we’re not satisfied,” said Mr. Kryska. “We’re not happy where we are. We should be a lot further along. We’re not there.”
The Steamship staff have worked to create a recovery timeline for the project, and are now estimating that the system could be partially rolled out for the Nantucket fast ferry in February. But board members have also floated delaying the system further to make sure it is actually ready when it comes to customers.
“We had another conversation about that today. Do we need to take another step back and really make sure we’re doing the right thing?” Mr. Kryska said at the budget forum on the Island.
Vineyard Steamship board member Ted Gavin had suggested delaying the launch of the reservation system earlier this month after testing it and staff this week said Steamship specific programs, such as the excursion tickets for Islander vehicles, Head Start tickets and freight bookings, were giving E-Dea trouble.
“Those are things we want to get right because they’re unique to the Steamship,” said Mark Rozum, the Steamship’s treasurer and comptroller, and one of the people spearheading testing.
The Steamship wants to test the fast ferry first because it has the simplest transactions and doesn’t have to deal with vehicle deck space or the vehicle discount programs. Having those test results will help the other programs, which, on the projected timeline, would all be live by November 2027.
The Steamship Authority has been in talks with other ferry services that have used E-Dea, including the British Columbia system and the Caledonian MacBrayne ferries in Scotland.
Those ferry lines have pointed to things that didn’t work, or were snags at launch. The Scottish ferries struggled mightily when they launched the system in 2023 — something the Steamship is trying to avoid.
“As challenging as it is and as disappointing as it is to delay, they went through what we all refer to as the ‘Big Bang,’ which was essentially switching on overnight, with little preparation, with little communication to their workforce, with little education to their workforce, with little information to their general public,” said Stephen Colman, the Steamship’s director information technology, at the subcommittee meeting. “And they paid dearly for the next year or more.”
Board members supported delaying the launch of the new system if it meant being able to avoid the replication of the Scottish nightmare.
“I think it’s important that we take a step back and we aren’t rushing to meet an arbitrary deadline that we set for ourselves,” said Peter Jeffrey, the Falmouth board member, at the meeting.
Still, the longer the Steamship waits to move over, the more dependent it is on the system that was created by David Cox, a Wisconsin-based developer who is looking to retire. Mr. Jeffrey described the current system as past its prime and “limping towards its death.”
“I don’t want to lose sight of the risk we have of continuing on that reservation system that we currently have,” he said.
It’s not clear what an outside assessment may cost. If the price goes above a certain threshold, management would need to get approval from the board. Mr. Kryska at the meeting told Steamship officials that quotes have ranged widely, and he was hoping for a quick turnaround to keep the project moving.
John Cahill, Tisbury’s member on the Steamship’s advisory port council, was in favor of doing an assessment, and wondered if there was any way to find someone who has had experience in this area.
“My concern is if [we] turn this over to a, let’s say a McKinsey type, it could cost us six figures and six months,” he said.
Mr. Jeffrey hoped there was someone who could do strong work quickly, but felt it was essential to do it right, even if it takes extra time.
“It’s worth the time to get the good result so we deliver the best experience to the user once we go live with E-Dea,” he said.
Delaying implementation could bring a little more than $800,000 in additional cost, though some of that may already be baked into the existing budget.
Islanders did get a sneak peek of the new system at the budget Hebrew Center forum. Mr. Rozum walked the 20 attendees through booking a passenger and vehicle ticket, while noting areas where the developer is still making fixes and changes.
At the earlier subcommittee meeting, Robert Ranney, the Nantucket Steamship board member, said it may take some getting used to, but likely would be familiar to the traveling public.
“Some of those changes aren’t as bad as they first seem like they will be,” he said at the subcommittee meeting. “If anybody has booked a recent airline trip, or something of that nature, it’s not too different from that.”
With the new reservation system, the Steamship is eyeing several potential changes, such as dynamic pricing, where lesser booked trips could be sold for cheaper than more popular ferries. The Steamship is also hoping to close the loop on discrepancies between what the website says is available and the actual space on the ferry decks.
“One of the big goals is, and one of the frustrations we’ve heard, you go online, you call on the phone, [and there is] no space available,” said Mr. Rozum. “You go to the terminal, and it doesn’t match. The goal is to have what’s online… and what’s actually happening to all be the same.”
Training has started for employees on the new system, and workers in Woods Hole and on the Vineyard got to take it for a spin this week. Mr. Kryska told Vineyarders at the forum there was a chance that the system could all be implemented by next November, but he wanted to leave wiggle room to get it right.
“We’re fairly confident we can do that, but I’m saying it’s in pencil,” he said. “It’s in heavy pencil, but it’s still in pencil.”