Mombasa Electric Ferry and Water Transport System

The Mombasa Electric Ferry and Water Transport System is a project within the Transportation theme. It is a plan for a network of public water buses on Mombasa’s creeks and harbour, linking the island to the north and south mainland and to Mtwapa in Kilifi County, to take commuters off congested roads and bridges. The Economic Development and Investment Council for Greater Mombasa (EDIC) lists it as a priority and is helping the Mombasa Investment Corporation prepare it as a public private partnership; the county lists it as a KES 1 billion flagship, and a UN-Habitat feasibility study published in 2026 proposes 22 jetties and a pilot route from about 2028. The Pwani 2050 plan adds that the vessels should be electric, citing new battery and hydrofoil ferries in Sweden and South America. The feasibility study costs diesel catamarans and only recommends that specifications “promote” hybrid or electric vessels, so the electric part of the idea is not yet in the official plan.

What it is

EDIC describes a “public-private ferry/water-bus service to decongest roads and improve access across creeks and the port corridor”, and says it will convene a stakeholder workshop to review the existing business plan and support the Mombasa Investment Corporation (MIC) “with financial modelling to engage investors and structure the transaction”.¹ EDIC’s homepage card labels the project “Malindi, Kilifi”, but every other source, including EDIC’s own project page, describes a Mombasa network. EDIC’s project page proposes a model in which the county owns the jetties and a private operator runs the vessels and the farebox, citing NY Waterway, the Rotterdam Waterbus and Manly Fast Ferry. It gives an indicative pilot cost of US$4 to 10 million for two terminals and two vessels, a second phase from 2028 at US$30 to 50 million, more than 400 direct jobs and more than 25 million passenger trips a year at full scale.²

The county’s plan for 2023 to 2027 lists “Water Transport” as a county flagship in all sub-counties, “to decongest the traffic in the county”, by collaborating with the national government on a PPP with development partners and providing a legal framework, with identified landing sites as the output, at an estimated KES 1 billion, led by the Transport and Infrastructure department and MIC.³ The county’s development plan for 2024/25 budgets a water transport feasibility study and sets targets for jetties and access roads, but targets no water buses for procurement in that year.⁴

The feasibility study

The most detailed plan is a feasibility study for coastal and harbour water transport, funded through the EU’s Go Blue project and carried out for UN-Habitat by the Coastal and Marine Resource Development consultancy (COMRED). It proposes 22 landing jetties, 18 in Mombasa and 4 at Mtwapa, grouped in six route corridors: Mtwapa Creek, the north coast beaches, Tudor Creek to Nyali, the open sea east of the island, and Kilindini Harbour and Port Reitz. It costs 150-seat aluminium catamarans at US$3 to 3.5 million and 300-seat catamarans at about US$6 million, running at 25 knots on diesel at an estimated 600 litres an hour. Its roadmap gives MIC and the county the environmental assessment, land tenure checks, financial modelling and legal review for 2025 to 2027, then design, jetty construction and a pilot on one route, for example Likoni to Kisauni, between 2028 and 2032.⁵ Of 207 residents surveyed, 92.2 per cent said they were interested in using public water transport, and most preferred a fare of KES 50 to 100.

The electric option

The Pwani 2050 plan proposes an electric ferry system, offering carbon-neutral fast water transport, combined with Swahili design in the vessels and terminals. The feasibility study notes that fuel is the largest running cost of a diesel water bus, about US$1.75 million a year for one 300-seat vessel, and recommends that vessel specifications “promote investment in hybrid/electric water buses and ferries, solar energy systems for water buses”, but it does not cost an electric option.

Two recent vessels show what is now possible. In Stockholm, the Swedish company Candela’s P-12 hydrofoil Nova, a 12 m electric ferry that lifts its hull out of the water on foils, began carrying passengers between Ekerö and the city centre in October 2024 as a pilot with the regional transport authority, cutting the trip from 55 to about 30 minutes.⁶ Candela reports that the evaluation of the pilot found 66 per cent lower energy use and 94 per cent lower carbon emissions than the diesel ferries, a 22.5 per cent rise in ridership and 95 per cent of passengers positive.⁷ The P-12 cruises at about 25 knots with a range of up to 40 nautical miles and charges in about 45 minutes to an hour from a DC fast charger.⁸ A P-12 began running on the Spree in Berlin in 2024, and an operator in Norway ordered 20 in April 2026.⁹¹⁰

At the other end of the scale, the China Zorrilla, built by Incat in Tasmania for the Buquebus line, is a 130 m ferry for up to 2,100 passengers and 225 vehicles, driven by more than 250 tonnes of batteries with over 40 MWh of capacity. It made its first crossing under its own power from Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay to Buenos Aires on 1 October 2026, with chargers built at both ends of the route.¹¹ The Maritime Executive reported the same 30 nautical mile route across the Río de la Plata, and that Incat is building three more large electric ferries for Denmark’s Molslinjen.¹² Mariners Log cautions that battery degradation, charger and grid reliability and the promised savings remain the key uncertainties, and that battery-electric ferries remain best suited to carefully chosen routes.

In Africa, Lagos State launched the Omi Eko programme in 2025, a €410 million plan for 75 electric ferries on 15 routes, funded by loans from the European Investment Bank and the French development agency AFD and an EU grant.¹³¹⁴ No electric passenger ferry was found operating on the Kenyan coast.

Rationale

EDIC’s case is that Mombasa is an island whose bridges and causeway are congested, with more than a million people entering and leaving it each day, more than 55 per cent of residents naming congestion as the city’s main transport problem, and over 90 per cent supporting public water transport. These figures broadly match the feasibility study, whose survey found congestion the top road transport problem for 58.6 per cent of respondents and 92.2 per cent support for water transport; the million daily trips figure dates from a 2014 pre-feasibility study by the Dutch firm Berenschot. The Likoni crossing alone carries more than 400,000 people and 6,000 vehicles a day.¹⁵ The case for electric vessels is that fuel dominates running costs and that the Stockholm results show large energy savings on short urban routes.

Status and timeline

Water buses for Mombasa have been proposed many times. In 2013 the PPP Committee approved Kenya Ferry Services’ concept for an Integrated Marine Transport System of water buses, water taxis and coastal ferries, which Kenya Ferry Services later said it was revising for resubmission.¹⁶ In 2014 the county commissioned the Berenschot pre-feasibility study, which found “Island Line” water-bus services linking the north mainland and the east of the island technically and financially viable. In March 2017 the county again sought investors for sea transport to relieve the Nyali Bridge.¹⁷ The JICA master plan for Mombasa of 2018 included water transport along the Nyali channel but judged it a niche service.¹⁸ The county corporation MIC was gazetted in 2020.¹⁹

UN-Habitat called for proposals for the full feasibility study in January 2024, at the request of Governor Abdulswamad Sharif Nassir,²⁰ and published the study in March 2026. EDIC says screening, concept and pre-feasibility were complete by the first quarter of 2026, with detailed design, approvals and investor financing to follow through 2027. EDIC’s council discussed the water transport initiative, including proof-of-concept sites, in June 2026.²¹ In August 2025 the Kenya Ports Authority separately launched an Integrated Maritime and Inland Water Transport System with the four coastal counties.²² As of October 2026 no operator, vessel order or financing has been announced.

How the project is being procured

No Terms of Reference, request for proposals or transaction advisory tender has been published, and the project does not appear in the PPP Directorate’s pipeline status report of December 2024.²³ The county and MIC are preparing it outside the formal PPP tender process, from the feasibility study and the earlier business plan, with EDIC supporting the financial model and investor sounding. The feasibility study’s roadmap places procurement of landing infrastructure, vessels and ticketing through expressions of interest in 2028 to 2032.

Who is involved

EDIC is a multi-stakeholder council for Greater Mombasa chaired by Dr Kevit Desai. The County Government of Mombasa and the Mombasa Investment Corporation own the project and lead its preparation. UN-Habitat, with UNEP and the EU’s Go Blue project, funded the feasibility study, with COMRED’s Howard M’mayi and Innocent Ngao as technical leads. The Kenya Ports Authority, which absorbed Kenya Ferry Services, runs the Likoni ferries, and the Kenya Maritime Authority regulates vessel safety. No private operator has been named.

• EDIC water transport page
• County Government of Mombasa
• Candela P-12

Concerns and counterpoints

The main doubts come from the project’s own studies, from the record of state ferry operations at Mombasa, and from experience with commuter water transport and electric ferries elsewhere.

Cost and demand

The feasibility study’s own figures put a water bus at about twice the hourly operating cost of bus rapid transit for the same 695 passengers, and it concedes that BRT “may be more cost-efficient per passenger”. In its 14-year table for one 300-seat vessel, net revenue stays negative until year 12. JICA’s master plan team judged a Nyali channel service “quite a niche market” that “will not cover the mass demand, and will not contribute to congestion alleviation”, better suited to city branding; the UN-Habitat team replied that Nyali includes middle and low-income households who would use it. EDIC’s figures also sit uneasily with the study’s: two 300-seat catamarans alone would cost about US$12 million against EDIC’s pilot budget of US$4 to 10 million for two vessels and two terminals, and the study’s assumption of about 328,500 passengers a year per vessel would need some 75 vessels to reach EDIC’s 25 million trips. A water bus charging fares would also compete with the Likoni ferries, which are free for pedestrians.

Safety and the record of state ferries

The Auditor-General found in 2017 that two Likoni ferries were overdue for dry-docking, that one engine had run more than 30,000 hours against an overhaul interval of 8,500, that defective pulleys let ferry prows dip under water, and that the ferries had no third-party insurance, concluding: “This endangers the safety of ferry users”. The same audit found a KES 1.86 billion contract for two ferries awarded to the bidder ranked fourth.²⁴ In September 2019 a car rolled off the MV Harambee and a woman and her daughter drowned; Business Daily reported that the recovery exposed poor marine rescue readiness.²⁵ In September 2026 a leisure boat capsized in Tudor Creek, killing two people, and the governor ordered the Kenya Maritime Authority to inspect all passenger vessels.²⁶ Half of those surveyed for the feasibility study were unsure how safe water transport would be.

Tides, landing sites and fishing

Stakeholders told the feasibility team that Mtwapa Creek is navigable for only about 15 of its 25 km and only at high tide, that the open sea north of the island is rough, that many landing sites are encroached or lack title deeds, that dredging could harm reefs, seagrass and mangroves, and that matatu operators might resist a competitor. The study recommends marking routes and consulting beach management units to protect fishing grounds. Old Town fishermen have already accused the Kenya Ports Authority of destroying their fishing grounds through dredging; the report carried no KPA response.²⁷

Electric vessels

Electric ferries need shore chargers and a strong local grid. An EU technical study for the Azores found that fast-charging one ferry route raised peak demand on the island of Faial by 2.6 MW, about 11 per cent of its electricity use, and recommended battery storage at the port.²⁸ An American naval architect, Maggie Fechter, writes that electrification pays only where route length, schedule and dwell time at the dock allow charging, and that it is hard to justify without dedicated funding.²⁹ Candela’s own published energy saving of up to 80 per cent is higher than the 66 per cent measured in Stockholm, and the P-12 is a much smaller vessel than the 150 to 300-seat catamarans the Mombasa study assumes. Against this, the large share of fuel in the study’s running costs is the strongest argument for testing an electric or hybrid vessel on the pilot route.

Sources

• Mombasa County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Mombasa.
• Mombasa County Annual Development Plan 2024/2025, County Government of Mombasa.
• Report of the Auditor-General on Kenya Ferry Services Limited, 2016/17, Office of the Auditor-General.
• Feasibility Study for Coastal and Harbour Water Transportation in Mombasa, UN-Habitat and COMRED, 2026 (5 MB, linked rather than uploaded).
• Mombasa Gate City Master Plan, Final Report Part II, JICA, 2018.
• Reclaiming Time and Mobility Through Coastal Water Transport, EDIC.
• The World’s Largest Electric Ferry Is Now Sailing, Mariners Log, 2026.