London River Services

London River Services

Locale	London, England
Waterway	River Thames
Transit type	Commuter boats, ferries and tourist/leisure services
Owner	Transport for London
Operator	Various boat companies
Began operation	1999
No. of terminals	25 (8 managed by TfL)
Website	http://www.tfl.gov.uk/river

London River Services Limited is a division of Transport for London (TfL), which manages passenger transport—leisure-oriented tourist services and commuter services—on the River Thames in London. It does not own or operate any boats itself, except those of the Woolwich Ferry, but licenses the services of operators.^[1]

River service had been a common means of transport in London for centuries, but died off in the early 1900s, as transportation was enhanced (and river traffic somewhat blocked) with a proliferation of bridges and tunnels. With these numerous north–south crossings of the Thames, which is generally no more than 300m wide as it runs through central London, the revival of river boat services in London therefore mostly travel east or west along the Thames rather than across it; the only major cross-river ferry services are to be found further downstream where the river is wider, and there are far fewer bridge/tunnel crossings.

The decision to revive London's river service network moved forward in 1997 with the launch of "Thames", a £21-million project (£48 million today) to regenerate the River Thames and create new passenger transport services on the Thames. While the service is not as extensive as those of Hong Kong or Sydney, it has been growing: in 2007, more than 700,000 commuters travelled by river on Thames Clippers services, one of the operators on the system;^[2] in 2013 the Thames Clippers service had grown to 3.3 million, as it had become more integrated into the tube and bus ticketing network;^[3] in 2014 their figure was 3.8 million;^[3] in 2015 it was forecasted that their ridership would increase to 4.3 million by 2016, supported by the addition of new Clipper boats.^[3] By 2018, there were 21 different operators carrying daily commuter, leisure, charter, or sightseeing passengers to various combinations of the 33 piers on the system.