


It has a capacity of 40 cars and 197 passengers. The 213ft (65m) Svanhild ferry – on the ‘Bjorkoleden’ route – runs 24 hours per day, making journeys every 10-20 minutes during peak hours, for commuters and sightseers. Trafikverket Färjerederiet operates a number of routes throughout Sweden. “We have been carrying out testing for a year and it has been great.” “We chose to test Volvo Penta’s IMO Tier III solution because our vision is to operate a service that is as environmentally-friendly as possible,” says Mikael Olofsson, the Svanhild’s skipper for Trafikverket Färjerederiet.

As such, Trafikverket Färjerederiet has been field-testing Volvo Penta’s IMO Tier III engine package, to see whether a reduction in emissions is compatible with the required performance. Yet efficiency is not the only mark of the ferry’s success as the company is a division of the government’s Swedish Transport Administration, sustainability is also valued. Each journey on the 900m route takes around five minutes, but with such a busy schedule, time is of the essence. The roll-on roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessel makes 57 return trips between the islands of Lilla Varholmen and Bjorko, west of Gothenburg. With 114 journeys every day, the Svanhild ferry has a heavy workload in transporting passengers and cars between two Swedish islands.
