Marseille

The Frioul archipelago located some 4 km from Marseille is a historic and popular destination primarily due to the Château d'If, the setting for Alexander Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The transit authority needed to improve the service reliability, punctuality, passenger information and the customer service experience while maintaining high safety standards.

In addition, the transit authority wanted the ferry service to be an integrated community partner that actively supported the local community by promoting the archipelago and the service as an important tourist destination.

The assignment of the transit authority was to implement a comprehensive improvement program which included:

• Developing schedules/timetables that cater to various customer expectations and fulfill all contractual commitments.
• Service reliability to meet the needs of the local community.
• Measuring service quality and customer satisfaction by conducting annual satisfaction surveys.

• Implemented schedule flexibility and increased number of round-trips depending on seasonal demand and local events, including flexible services during peak season to improve capacity.
• Introduced three new identical vessels which have been especially designed and built for a service that is:
  > Accessibility compliant according to EU-directives;
  > Environmentally sustainable, generating no water pollution and air pollution rates that are lower than the set emission standards;
  > equipped with LCD-flat screens for passenger information and safety messages during the journey.
• Installed new boarding docks equipped with lights, electricity and water pump stations to create a more customer friendly atmosphere and optimized embarking and disembarking of passengers.
• Improved customer service by providing multilingual customer service staff, an Information Center with long opening hours, a dedicated Call Center available every day of the week, and a new and improved website.
• Provided real-time information including schedules and tariffs to the local community and conducted joint marketing campaigns to increase awareness of the service and to attract new customers.