Free website alerts BC Ferries passengers when spots open up on full sailings

Over the summer, Victoria software engineer Vedran Budimcic watched his wife spend a week trying to get a coveted BC Ferries reservation, refreshing the website hundreds of times a day hoping for a cancellation on sold out sailings.

It was a problem he knew how to solve.

In just half an hour, Budimcic designed a program that would alert him when a spot opened up on a previously full ferry route. So he decided to make a website that public could use. In late September, he launched NextSailing.ca

“You select where you're leaving from and where you're going to, not unlike the BC ferries website, and then you pick which days you're interested in,” said Budimcic. “You can pick one or more days, one or more times on those days – and then at the end, you just enter your phone number, hit next, and you're done.”

There is no download or sign-up needed, Budimcic added.

If the software detects a spot has opened up on one of the routes the user has signed up for, they will get a text.

Budimcic says about 7,500 people have used the website since it launched, and around 500 texts have been sent about openings on previously full ferries. When the site caught on, he wondered if BC Ferries would try to shut it down.

“On one hand, the positives for them are that I'm helping them close reservations faster,” said Budimcic. “On the downside, my service is putting a little bit more load on their servers when it requests, like, what's the availability of the ferries periodically. I've built it in as responsible way as you can to not put a ton of load on them and as a result of that, I would guess they've been neutral as a response.”

The website is free, but there is a button where users can leave a donation, or write a review.

“The most rewarding part for me is seeing the people say, I couldn't get a ferry –some people even called the ferries just out of desperation – and then they use this and in an hour or less, some of these people got a reservation,” said Budimcic. “So that makes me the most happy.”