By Darrell Kirk

Staff reporter

A modernized ticketing and reservation system for Washington State Ferries has been delayed until at least late 2026 — more than a year past its original summer 2024 implementation date — leaving ferry users and advisory committees frustrated over what they say is a fundamental flaw in the development process: the absence of meaningful user testing.

The new system, which would combine WSF’s current separate ticketing and reservation platforms into one integrated system, was prioritized by former Gov. Jay Inslee in 2024 after ferry users experienced repeated system crashes during peak reservation release times. Initial implementation on the Port Townsend-Coupeville route is now anticipated for late 2026 at the earliest, followed by the San Juan Islands and other routes.

“As we’ve progressed in project development, we’ve found that the new system requires more extensive software development and hardware upgrades than anticipated,” said Justin Fujioka, brand and digital content manager for Washington State Ferries. “We’ve also identified additional needs related to integration with our current operations and other new IT systems.”

WSF is currently working with Anchor Operating Systems to re-evaluate the project’s schedule and scope. But the delay has highlighted what critics say is a critical oversight: Despite a year of requests, WSF has not shown a single screen design to the public or to Ferry Advisory Committee members, nor have they conducted user testing from the project’s inception. Anchor’s website mentions that the company is: “Built by Operators for Operators and is more than a ticketing platform. It is a cloud-based control panel that manages the integration of 3rd party partners, ingestion of all data, and production of centralized solutions.”

David Robinson, an experience design expert and founder of Electric Lexicon, a San Juan Island resident, has been advocating for user involvement for the past year. “With my background, I understand that the earlier you get your actual end users involved, the better the end product is going to be,” Robinson said. “And despite telling WSF every month for the last year, they insist on working independent of their end users.”

Justin Paulsen, a San Juan County Council member who serves on the county’s Ferry Advisory Committee, said both the San Juan and Jefferson County advisory committees have been requesting involvement from the beginning. “The ferry advisory committees in both San Juan County and in Jefferson County have been asking for and been offering to be user evaluators, user testers, from day one,” Paulsen said. “We have reached out to Washington State Ferries to be willing participants in providing input. And thus far there has been nothing to provide input on.”

“What I do know is that the residents of San Juan County have more information on the successes and failures of the reservation system than anyone in Washington State, including those who are working on it,” Paulsen said. “Nobody has more experience using that system than the residents of San Juan County and perhaps the residents of Port Townsend.”

The stakes are particularly high for commercial users and essential service providers. Paulsen noted that San Juan County has made addressing ferry access a legislative priority, specifically for “critical and essential providers.” “Things like grocery stores, things like our sanitation hauler, things like perhaps certain building suppliers — if they cannot successfully get reservations in a reliable and prioritized way, our communities will be lacking essential services,” Paulsen said. He summarized the need as “three Fs: food, fuel, and freight.”

The current system regularly becomes overloaded during peak times, particularly when seasonal reservations are released. This affects not only tourists but also residents who commute for work and those with regular medical appointments.

Skip Foss, owner of Cattle Point Rock & Topsoil on San Juan Island, is a commercial user of the ferries and reservation system and faces these challenges daily. His company brings topsoil from Cedar Grove in Everett, running two roundtrips per day with a 40-yard capacity truck. When the reservation system fails, the economic impact is severe. “40 yards of topsoil, let’s say it’s $85 a yard. So that’s $3,400 of revenue for the island,” Foss explained. “And that holds true with us and with the other people on this island that do the same thing. So the system has to work. We can’t afford a breakdown in any part of the system or we’re dead.” He calculated that missing 40 trips in a month would mean $136,000 in lost revenue for the island. “Our customers, we’re supplying customers to all the landscapers on the island. You know, they’re feeding their kids,” Foss said. “And if they don’t get material the day they need it, they’re not working that day.”

Beyond reservation availability, Foss identified operational challenges that a new system should address. Commercial trucks must arrive 30 minutes before scheduled departure, but tight turnaround times and ferry delays make this window difficult to meet. “If you arrive six minutes or eight minutes late, then you have a high possibility of missing a boat,” Foss said. He would like to see the new system make the 30-minute window more flexible for commercial trucks. “If they could make that 30 minute window more malleable, it would make a lot of the commercial trips easier,” he said.

Robinson explained that modern software development begins with users. “You start with your requirements and use cases. What are the things that people need to accomplish when they use a piece of software?” he said. “You develop low-fidelity screens that you can show to sample end users and say, ‘How does this work for you? Is this confusing? What else would you like to see?’ That way you get that kind of information before you start coding the product.”

The absence of this early feedback creates another problem, Robinson noted. When users see finished work, “they are unconsciously hesitant to complain or criticize it. If you show them something that is low fidelity, they can comment on that. But when you show an end user something that’s been developed, they are hesitant to criticize it because they feel badly that they’re criticizing so much work that’s gone into something.”

Robinson expressed particular concern for older ferry users, who may struggle with the new system’s “mobile-first” design approach. “A lot of our older users don’t use their phones for those kinds of activities. They use their phone to talk and maybe to text,” he said.

He also warned about the impact of frequent software development changes on this demographic, “The idea that WSF would release a product that’s not really fully baked and say, ‘Well, we’ll just fix it in the next release’ — well, you’ve already gotten this older population to shift to a new piece of software, and then you want to change it. It’s really disruptive and hard on folks.”

“The new system was planned as a customized version of an existing vendor product,” Fujioka said.

Fujioka said WSF is now “expanding customer engagement” and plans to “demonstrate the new system with Ferry Advisory Committee members and customers through public meetings, as well as in-person visits at terminals and on vessels.”

“We know not having a defined project schedule right now is frustrating,” Fujioka said. “Taking this time now allows us to build a more accurate schedule and, ultimately, a better system for customers and employees.”

For advocates like Robinson and Paulsen, the question remains whether user testing coming this late in the process can adequately address the needs of the system’s diverse users — from tech-savvy tourists to older residents to commercial operators managing complex logistics.