Torghatten teams up for emissions-free autonomous ferry

The city boat project is a research and development project which aims to develop a national pilot for an emissions-free autonomous city boat in Haugesund. Initially, the route will run between Haugesund Center (Indre kai), Risøy and Vibrandsøy. In the long term, the aim is for the route to also cover other locations such as Karmøy.

The partners plan to test the boat Q3 2025.

Emissions-free autonomous city boat project manager Veronica Charlotte Haugan said, “Competence and experience are the main keys to success when dealing with an innovation project like this. When there were changes in the project that made it possible for us to bring in more players, we chose the three who we believe have the most expertise and experience in this area in Norway. We now have a solid and strong collaboration group that has all the prerequisites to succeed in developing an autonomous city boat in Haugesund.”

Torghatten is Norway’s largest ferry company with extensive experience from operating ferry and fast boat services across the country, while Zeabuz is the supplier of the advanced autonomy technology that will be found on board the new boat. Together, they are behind the world’s first commercial autonomous city ferry, MF Estelle in Stockholm.

Seam is a supplier and integrator of maritime technology and systems which has worked on projects including LH2 ferry Hydra, the battery swap robot SHIFTR and the hydrogen ferries in the Vestfjorden.

The new partners will join the ranks of an already solid project group, which consist of Haugesund Municipality, Karmsund Havn, Havnekraft, Remota, Maritime Cleantech, Høgskulen på Vestlandet and Norce.