The Steamship Authority is preparing to adopt new reservation and ticketing policies that will affect virtually everyone who uses the ferries that connect Cape Cod with the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

As proposed under the boat line’s True North strategy and technology initiative, the policies are designed for the upcoming new reservation system, said information technology consultant Thomas Innis of Gibbous LLC, which is guiding the project for the Steamship Authority.

“The new system has some built-in constraints … and so we need to make sure that we’re aligning our policy with how it’s going to work,” Mr. Innis told the Steamship Authority board of governors, port council and executive staff at a joint workshop in Falmouth Tuesday.

The new reservation system and policies are intended to reduce the often-cited problem of trips with no bookings available, that nonetheless depart with empty spaces on the freight deck, he said.

Achieving this goal, however, will require motorists and freight shippers to change the way they have booked passage aboard the ferries for many years.

Adapting the new reservation system to keep the old policies would pile significant additional expenses onto an already costly project, Mr. Innis said.

“There’s a lot of trade-offs with every policy decision,” Mr. Innis said.

A pair of public forums at the Tisbury emergency services building Thursday, beginning at 3 p.m. for freight shippers and at 5:30 p.m. for other travelers, will give Islanders a first-hand look at the proposed changes.

Motorists who make reservations at times they would prefer not to travel will no longer be able to join an unlimited number of waiting lists in an effort to get another booking: The new policies allow no more than five waiting lists in total, whether before or after the reservation.

The proposed policies also do away with open tickets, requiring drivers to cancel reservations for trips they can’t make instead of postponing them indefinitely.

“We want people to pick the trip they actually want to take,” Mr. Innis said.

Other proposed changes affect standby tickets, which will be tied to specific trips rather than remaining eligible all day, and the way the Steamship Authority assigns room on its freight decks. 

Currently allocated by a system of “spaces,” all vehicles will be assigned based on their actual length in linear feet.

Freight customers face a streamlined lottery system for preseason bookings and a schedule of cancellation penalties that would replace the current system of advance deposits, Mr. Innis said.

Nat Lowell, a Nantucket trucker who represents his island on the Steamship Authority port council, pressed back forcefully against the freight proposals.

“We’re going to have to look at this a little bit more realistically,” Mr. Lowell said, arguing that the increasing cancellation fees would unfairly limit shippers’ flexibility.

Even foot passengers are included in the proposed new policies, which would do away with all paper tickets.

Gift cards, currently available only in physical form, also would go digital under the new system, which is expected to be up and running in 2027.

In addition to the in-person Vineyard forums Thursday, Mr. Innis also will lead two sessions Friday at the Steamship Authority headquarters in Falmouth, for shippers at 9 a.m. and the public at noon, and two at Nantucket’s Dreamland Jan. 27, for shippers at 3 p.m. and the public at 5:30 p.m.

A virtual connection would be available for the Falmouth meetings at https://bit.ly/TrueNorthtownhall. 

The Steamship Authority and port council are also considering another joint meeting on the proposed policies on Feb. 3.

Editor's note: this article has been updated with information about the Falmouth reservation meeting and a proposed joint meeting next month.