Paul Terry wrote:

In message .com, Neil
Williams writes

Paul Terry wrote:

But how many staff does it take to dock? As always, it is staff costs
that will contribute most to the cost of the service.

I think they have 3 "conductors" on the larger boats that do that and
sell tickets.

That would certainly contribute to the cost issue. On the relatively
tide-less Venetian lagoon, a 150-seater vaporetto can be docked in about
30 seconds by the driver plus one conductor.

However, while they may need to have more people on the boat doing
this, many of the commuter piers have no staff on them at all. So,
compare say 10 people on average on 6 boats, that's 60 people running
that 'line' to all the staff working on the Jubilee line stations
between Waterloo and North Greenwich. Even Southwark station (probably
one of the smallest on that bit of line) has more people working there
than 1 boat and there's 7 stations in total on that stretch.

There's also generally no problems with 'leaves on the line', 'wrong
sort of pollen' (which affects trains in Wales), 'passenger action' or
general vandalism on the ferry service.