White fleet returns to the Baltic. Puck - Chałupy is more than a seasonal route

The return of passenger coastal shipping on the Puck - Swarzewo - Chałupy route may look, at first glance, like a charming addition to Poland’s summer tourism offer. A quiet, fully electric water tram with bicycle capacity fits neatly into the language of sustainable mobility, low-emission tourism and seasonal slow travel. Yet viewed in a broader context, the launch of the new service across the Bay of Puck carries significance well beyond a local tourism initiative. It signals the return of an idea that was once natural for coastal Poland: the white fleet as part of regional mobility infrastructure, not merely as a leisure product.

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16 may 2026   |   20:13   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Konrad Kędzior / Miasto Puck

Poland has spent decades turning away from waterborne transport

For years, Polish transport policy has been overwhelmingly shaped by roads and railways. Seas, rivers, canals and lagoons have largely been treated either as spaces for recreation or as corridors for cargo logistics.

Across much of Europe, however, passenger water transport functions as an ordinary component of urban and regional mobility systems.

One need only look at Amsterdam, where ferries connecting the city centre with northern districts operate as part of daily public transport. In Copenhagen, water buses running through harbour canals are integrated into the same ticketing system as metro lines and buses. In Stockholm, water connections between islands and waterfront districts have long served as a practical mobility solution rather than a tourist attraction.

Poland has similarly favourable geographical conditions. Its Baltic coastline, the Vistula Lagoon, Szczecin Lagoon, the Vistula delta, the Oder and Vistula rivers, as well as an extensive network of canals and interconnected lakes, form a natural system whose transport potential remains significantly underused.

A maritime country that forgot about water

The paradox is difficult to ignore: a country with direct sea access and one of Europe’s major river systems has, for decades, largely neglected passenger water transport.

Following the post-communist transition, inland and coastal passenger shipping increasingly came to be perceived either as a legacy concept or as a premium tourism product. Investment priorities understandably focused on highways, bypass roads and rail modernisation, but this came at the expense of building a modern waterborne mobility offer.

The Bay of Puck as a pilot project

This is precisely why the Puck - Chałupy route via Swarzewo matters.

In practical terms, it addresses a very real bottleneck. During summer, access to the Hel Peninsula is frequently paralysed by congestion along provincial road 216, a recurring symbol of seasonal transport inefficiency on the Polish coast.

Any alternative capable of bypassing this narrow corridor offers both economic and environmental value.

At present, of course, the project remains modest - a single vessel, limited capacity, seasonal operations and continued dependence on weather conditions do not amount to systemic change.

But pilot projects are rarely about scale at the outset. Their value lies in testing operational, technical and behavioural models.

Has Poland matured enough for waterborne mobility?

The more important question is therefore strategic: has Poland matured enough to treat maritime and inland water transport as part of mobility policy, rather than merely as a tourism add-on?

Several conditions suggest the timing may finally be right.

First, technology is changing the economics. The electrification of small passenger vessels lowers operational barriers through reduced maintenance costs, lower noise levels and improved social acceptance, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Bay of Puck.

Second, transport planning itself is evolving. Increasingly, cities and regions are shifting away from single-mode thinking in favour of integrated systems combining rail, cycling, micromobility and water transport.

Third, climate and tourism pressures are intensifying. Coastal and river cities need mobility solutions capable of dispersing visitor flows, reducing parking pressure and lowering emissions.

Poland’s potential goes far beyond one route

The Baltic coast offers clear opportunities for short-distance regional maritime connections, including:

• Gdynia - Hel - Jastarnia - Władysławowo,
• Gdańsk - Sobieszewo - Krynica Morska,
• Szczecin - Świnoujście - Wolin - Międzyzdroje,
• Gdańsk - Sopot - Gdynia,
• Gdańsk - Gdynia.

The inland potential may be even greater, albeit more infrastructure-intensive.

Warsaw has so far approached the Vistula primarily as a recreational asset, yet long-term north-south urban water mobility is not an implausible concept. Wrocław, with its extensive Oder network, appears particularly well suited to stronger use of waterborne transport. Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Kraków could also explore hybrid local models.

Structural barriers remain significant

Strong branding alone will not solve the sector’s challenges.

The most significant barriers include:

• the poor standard of parts of port and marina infrastructure,
• fragmented administrative competencies,
• weak tariff integration with rail and urban transport,
• insufficient scale and limited procurement predictability for operators.

An additional challenge is the condition of the waterways themselves.

In the case of inland and canal-based transport, Poland continues to face years of underinvestment in maintaining riverbeds, navigational channels and hydraulic infrastructure. Shallow sections, sediment build-up and irregular dredging significantly reduce navigational predictability and complicate the development of stable transport services.

Without addressing these fundamentals, water trams risk remaining little more than attractive additions to tourism brochures.

The first step has nevertheless been taken

If treated not as a curiosity but as a pilot, the Puck project may indicate something more fundamental: that Poland is slowly returning to transport thinking aligned with its geography.

And geography is difficult to negotiate with.

A country with a coastline, lagoons, navigable rivers and canals pays a price for failing to treat them as mobility corridors.

Perhaps, then, the white fleet really is returning to the Baltic - not yet at a scale capable of transforming national mobility patterns, but clearly as more than a nostalgic gesture.

And perhaps a short electric voyage from Puck to Chałupy marks the beginning of a larger discussion: whether Poland is finally prepared to use what its geography has always offered, not only roads and railways, but water as well.

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