Harbour City Ferries, a joint venture of Transfield Services and Transdev, operates and maintains the ferries of Sydney Harbour. As a key part of the harbour city’s transport infrastructure for cross-water commuters, smooth running of the ferries of course is reliant on an efficient maintenance schedule and a quick turnaround time. At their dry dock maintenance facility, workers needed safe on-foot access to ferries once the craft had been lowered after the drainage of water.
With the use of scaffolding being too laborious and time-consuming, Harbour City Ferries looked to Sydney-based custom height access manufacturer SafeSmart Access for an answer. SafeSmart designed and built a ‘stairs and gangway’ system featuring marine grade aluminium construction and non-slip stair treads. The stair set was measured perfectly to align at the top with the perpendicular gangway as well as reach the boat deck at the correct angle after water was forcibly subsided.
Whenever a ferry is taken in for servicing, the access system is simply craned in in minutes, secured and ready to use. The system is compliant with AS1657, more than three times faster to install than scaffolding and now saves the client time and money.
