Safety issues will launch a typically varied agenda. Other topics range from technical innovations – including vessel design, propulsion systems, alternative fuels, automated mooring and anti-fouling coatings – to ticketing IT, urban waterways, legal insights and an insurer's perspective on risk assessment.
Only three Interferry conferences have been held outside Europe and the Americas since the event was last held in the Philippines in 1999. This year's venue was inspired by key statistics on membership and casualties, as explained by Darrell Bryan, who is acting as Interferry CEO pending a permanent successor to recently-retired Len Roueche.

"The global ferry industry carries more than two billion passengers per year and close to half of these are in SE Asia," says Bryan, the former president and CEO of Seattle-based fast ferry operator Victoria Clipper. "In contrast, only 22% of our members are from Asia, the Pacific and Africa, so we are determined to recruit in these regions – not least to extend our safety initiative in the developing world, where the vast majority of serious ferry incidents take place. Our invitation to Kitack Lim aims to boost both these objectives by allowing a lot of potential members to hear and meet him close to home."
A global line-up of speakers will analyse the reasons and remedies for life-threatening incidents. Joining regional authorities from Indonesia and Bangladesh, Capt. Nurur Rahman, Papua New Guinea's maritime safety operations manager, will examine why 95% of ferry fatalities occur in developing countries. Citing sub-standard vessels, lack or sluggish enforcement of rules, inadequate training, overloading and poor weather forecasting, he warns: "Developing economies do not have the financial capacity that is absolutely necessary to address the challenges of minimising fatalities at sea."
The Interferry 2016 conference on October 17-18 is the centrepiece of a five-day schedule from October 15.