Another review of the Isle of Wight’s troubled Floating Bridge is taking place, costing nearly £50,000.
This time it will focus on the last ‘two remaining issues’ impacting the service.
A six-month review of the efficiency and operation of the vessel started earlier this year.
Report due in December
It is being carried out by 3S Services and costing the council £47,520, with a report due to be produced in December, setting out the findings and recommendations for the authority to consider.
The two remaining issues, the council says, is the failure to operate in all tides while maintaining the necessary chain clearance and the speed of loading and unloading the vessel while needing to keep vehicles, foot passengers and cyclists separate.
Other improvements
It also aims to identify if it is possible to improve the queuing, paying, loading and unloading processes, with the hope of increasing the number of crossings per hour.
The Isle of Wight council says the Floating Bridge ‘continues to provide a reliable service’ with recent figures from the authority showing it carried out 100 per cent of its scheduled hours in March and April, but averaging at 97.1 per cent of those hours between April, May and June.
Software issues
In July, a software issue saw the Floating Bridge 6 out of action for just over four weeks, including over Cowes Week.
Due to the nature of the fault, the vessel had to be inspected by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency before it could go back into service.
The council said it used the downtime to carry out maintenance works to prevent issues in the future.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may have been made by OnTheWight. Ed
