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Notes from the team
How ferry operations software actually works, written plainly by the people building it. No thought-leadership — just the real problems and how BORA handles them.
BORA Systems is a ferry operations platform built in Tallinn, Estonia — 33 modules across 6 functional categories, in daily service as of 2026 across the Baltic, the Channel Islands and the Persian Gulf. It is certified to ISO/IEC 27001 and GDPR-compliant, and its boarding validation is built to the ISPS Code. These notes are where the team writes about the engineering behind that.
Selling the car deck by the lane-metre
Why BORA books and prices ferry vehicles in lane-metres and weight rather than by headcount, and how the vehicle gate measures each one before it reaches the ramp.
Read the article →One ledger for every channel: website, agency, kiosk and on board
How BORA writes every ferry sale — online, through an agency, at the terminal desk or kiosk, and at sea — into one booking flow and one ledger, so the day's takings are one figure rather than several to reconcile.
Read the article →An MCP server for ferry operations: what an AI agent can and cannot do
BORA exposes ferry schedules, live capacity, reporting and bookings to AI agents over the Model Context Protocol. What the tools cover, how access is scoped per operator, and where the agent stops.
Read the article →What a lifeline ferry route needs from its booking system
Island lifeline ferries carry residents, visitors, vehicles and freight on the same crossings, often with unreliable connectivity. What that asks of a booking and boarding system, from Kihnu and Sark to Saaremaa.
Read the article →Why boarding validation has to work offline
A ferry ramp is the worst place to depend on a network. How BORA validates boarding offline on the handheld, reconciles later, and still produces an exact departure manifest under the ISPS Code.
Read the article →Pricing that changes by route, date and season without reissuing tickets
How a ferry fare in BORA can depend on the crossing, the calendar and the vehicle class at once, while the schedule and the tickets already sold stay untouched.
Read the article →