Hogia ITS solution makes Dutch national TV news broadcasts
On Tuesday 8 January 2019, Holland was struck by the first severe storm of the winter season. The northern part of the Country was hit by very high winds. For Wagenborg Passenger Services, operating between Holwerd and Ameland, and Lauwersoog and Schiermonnikoog, the severe wind was not really the main problem that the ferry company had to deal with, but rather the extreme hightide causing disruption of both ferry services.
It was the first time since Wagenborg introduced departure screens powered by ITS (UK) member Hogia’s Public Transport Systems’ PubTransTM, that several fast ferry and normal ferry services had been cancelled. PubTransTM enabled this information to be displayed on the departure screens in real time. As the most severe weather conditions were predicted for the area where Wagenborg operates their ferry services, a camera crew from national TV arrived in the very early morning of Tuesday the 8th of January to film the passenger terminal in Holwerd. The filming included a shot of the departure screen, which was shown on the national news broadcasts by both public and commercial TV!
Around ten o’clock that same morning the water had risen so high that the passenger terminals on Ameland, Schiermonnikoog and in Holwerd could not be reached for some time by passengers and vehicles.
The first eight days of 2019 resulted in a rough start for Ameland and Schiermonnikoog. During the night of 1st to 2nd January, the containership MSC Zoë lost 291 containers while transitting the shipping lane above the German island of Borkum. Since this incident, the beaches of many Wadden islands were crowded with all kinds of materials that were in the containers, for example chairs, shoes, children’s toys, ladies bags, furniture and plastic. The accident is already considered as the largest pollution disaster that has ever struck the Wadden islands, and even the Wadden sea. Wagenborg Passenger Services introduced a special rate for passengers for the first weekend of January so that passengers from the mainland could help the islanders to clean the beaches.
