Research
Water Roads' published white papers and news, in one filterable list.
The technical and economic detail behind the site’s summaries sits here, with Water Roads’ news alongside it. Each paper is written for someone weighing electric hydrofoil transit for their own city: the vessel technology, how it behaves in the environment, and the economics of running a service.
One paper is published so far. It covers wake reduction and the case that lower wake allows higher-frequency scheduling, and it is the right starting point whichever topic interests you most. No news post has been published yet.
January 2026
Speed Without Wake: Electric Foiling Commuter Vessels
Who this is for: Readers assessing vessel performance and the operating case for a water metro service.
How electric hydrofoil vessels cut the wake they generate compared with conventional ferries, and what that means for permitted operating speed and service frequency. The paper draws on operational data from Candela's Stockholm deployment of the P-12 vessel alongside the Sydney pilot design, and makes the case for higher-frequency, metro-style scheduling on a waterway.
PDF, no form or email required.
Read the paperNo paper published in this area yet.
No paper published in this area yet.
No paper published in this area yet.
No news posted yet.
Carbon and renewables
Water Roads models the carbon and renewable-energy impact of its network in a carbon impact report covering 2027 to 2040, its initial deployment period. The report projects impact from three sources, each calculated and reported independently: the shift from car travel, the efficiency gain of an electric hydrofoil fleet over a conventional diesel ferry fleet, and the construction carbon avoided by not building an equivalent road tunnel or rail line.
Modelled across the network at maturity, this gives 6.0 million tonnes of CO2 cumulative from 2027 to 2040, a 2040 annual run rate of 1.5 million tonnes, and 1.2 billion annual passengers, across 48 cities. This is a network figure, not a per-route one — no per-city or per-route breakdown is published here.
The modelling assumes 2.8 million passengers per route per year at maturity, a 40 per cent modal-shift rate from private car travel, and a 0.7 kg CO2 per kWh grid emissions factor for charging electricity. These are assumptions, not measured results — no Water Roads route has launched.
Three further assumptions — the average car-trip distance replaced, the car emissions factor used, and the vessel’s own energy-efficiency figure — are withheld pending reconciliation with other Water Roads figures, rather than omitted without comment. The report gives no carbon-credit price or valuation, and neither appears anywhere on this site.
The report itself is not yet available as a download from this page.