Mainz
The Rhine flows around 290 kilometers through Rhineland-Palatinate. About a dozen car ferries and a handful of passenger ferries cross the river on this route. Corona, vehicle prices and staff shortages are also causing them problems.
Due to a lack of staff, the bicycle ferry between Budenheim and the Hessian Walluf will not start this spring. “But the Schiersteiner Bridge is only 2.5 kilometers away,” says the mother of the operating family, Nikolay.
And more and more people are using electric bikes. However, the “Libelle” should not be taken out of service just yet, but rented out. The family runs the ferry with Hubertus Nikolay in the fifth generation, but their main business is passenger shipping. And after the death of the father, a ferryman was missing for the bicycle ferry. “We all have insane personnel problems,” says the chairman of the German Ferry Association, Michael Maul.
The number of employees in the ferry companies, i.e. the ship personnel in Rhineland-Palatinate, has not been precisely recorded since Corona, but is still stable at around 130, says Maul. However, there is an urgent need for staff: “We are desperately looking for cashiers, even without prior training.”
Sales in the state increased by 3.9 percent in 2022 compared to the year 2019 before the pandemic – with one exception due to the absence of a construction site. The association does not give any absolute figures – “However, the increase includes two price increases, so that the number of transports has fallen by around nine percent.”
Operating only on Sundays and public holidays
The bicycle ferry between Budenheim and Walluf is a “very special case,” says Maul. As a rule, she was only on the road on Sundays and public holidays, “especially for nice-weather cycling,” says Maul, who operates the ferry between Oestrich-Winkel and Ingelheim.
“But I think it’s a shame. It was such a nice cycle tour, on one side with our ferry and then back with the other.” The cyclists would now have to extend this tour to Mainz, but this route is not particularly nice.
“One less popular excursion destination,” agrees Rolf Pinckert from the ADFC district association Mainz-Bingen. “The Schiersteiner Bridge is not so nice for cyclists to ride on.” The other Rhine bridges in Mainz are not particularly attractive for cyclists either. Pedelec drivers in particular would find it very difficult to cross the Kaiserbrücke because the drivers have to get off to push their bike onto the bridge. With the planned “ramps and spindles” this would be a little better.
Sparse crossings on the Rhine
But the other Rhine bridges between Mainz and Hesse are also “not so great” for commuters: Pedestrians and cyclists obstruct each other on the Theodor-Heuss Bridge, the motorway bridge near Weisenau is extremely uncomfortable due to the heavy traffic and the railway bridge in between is very narrow. But also in the rest of the federal state, the “crossings on the Rhine are very sparse”, Pinckert regrets.
A good dozen car ferries sail daily in Rhineland-Palatinate across the Rhine – usually all year round. The ferry service runs from Leimersheim in the Palatinate to Leopoldshafen in the Karlsruhe district to Remagen-Linz in northern Rhineland-Palatinate.
In addition, there are a good handful of passenger ferries that only operate temporarily, including the “Nixe” between Remagen and Erpel. It belongs to the Rhine ferry Linz-Kripp GmbH and says it has “no problems”. Likewise, the passenger ferry between Bingen and Rüdesheim, which is also operated by the car ferry, as Maul says.
The lack of personnel is also causing problems for the larger ships – however, it is not a threat to their existence – many sectors are struggling with it. The high fuel costs are also a burden for ferries. “Times are difficult.”
