A ferry is a merchant vessel used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate regular return services. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi. Ferries form a part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities and islands, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels. However, ship connections of much larger distances (such as over long distances in water bodies like the Mediterranean Sea) may also be called ferry services, especially if they carry vehicles. The profession of the ferryman is embodied in Greek mythology in Charon, the boatman who transported souls across the River Styx to the Underworld. The busiest seaway in the world, the English Channel, connects Great Britain and mainland Europe, sailing mainly to French ports, such as Calais, Dunkirk, Dover, Dieppe, Roscoff, Cherbourg-Octeville, Caen, St Malo and Le Havre. Ferries from Great Britain also sail to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Ireland. Some ferries carry mainly tourist traffic, but most also carry freight, and some are exclusively for the use of freight lorries. In Britain, car-carrying ferries are sometimes referred to as RORO (roll-on, roll-off) for the ease by which vehicles can board and leave. The busiest single ferry route (at least in terms of the number of departures) is across the northern part of Øresund, between Helsingborg, Scania, Sweden and Elsinore, Denmark. Before the Øresund bridge was opened in July 2000, car and "car & train" ferries departed up to seven times every hour. In 2013, this has been reduced, but a car ferry still departs from each harbor every 15 minutes during daytime.[1] The route is around 2.2 nautical miles (4.1 km; 2.5 mi) and the crossing takes 22 minutes. Today, all ferries on this route are constructed so that they do not need to turn around in the harbors. This also means that the ferries lack natural stems and sterns, since the vessels sail in both directions (rather than "sail backwards"). Due to the same circumstances, starboard and port-side are "dynamic" and depending of in what direction the ferry sails. Despite the short crossing, the ferries are equipped with restaurants (on 3 out of 4 ferries), cafeteria, kiosks and WC toilets. (Passengers without cars often make a "double or triple return" journey in the restaurants; for this, a common single journey ticket is sufficient. Passenger and bicycle passenger tickets are inexpensive compared with longer routes.) Large cruiseferries sail in the Baltic Sea between Finland, Åland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Saint Petersburg, Russia and from Italy to Sardinia, Corsica, Spain and Greece. In many ways, these ferries are like cruise ships, but they can also carry hundreds of cars on car decks. Besides providing passenger and car transport across the sea, Baltic Sea cruiseferries are a popular tourist destination unto themselves, with multiple restaurants, nightclubs, bars, shops and entertainment on board. Also many smaller ferries operate on domestic routes in Finland, Sweden and Estonia. The south-west and southern parts of the Baltic Sea has several routes mainly for heavy traffic and cars. The ferry routes of Trelleborg-Rostock SWE-GER, Trelleborg-Travemünde SWE-GER, Trelleborg-Świnoujście SWE-POL, Gedser-Rostock DEN-GER, Gdynia-Karlskrona POL-SWE, and Ystad-Świnoujście SWE-POL are all typical transports ferries. On the longer of these routes, simple cabins are available. The Rødby-Puttgarden DEN-GER route also carries day passenger trains between Copenhagen and Hamburg, and on the Trelleborg-Sassnitz SWE-GER route, it also has capacities for the daily night trains between Berlin and Malmö. In Istanbul, ferries connect the European and Asian shores of Bosphorus, as well as Princes Islands and nearby coastal towns. In 2014 İDO transported 47 million passengers, the largest ferry system in the world.
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