Ferries from Mortavika ferjekai

Every time you buy a ticket on this crossing you are also paying for the tunnel that will make it unnecessary. Since 5 September 2013, the fare on the Boknafjord ferry has carried a toll for Rogfast — the subsea road tunnel being blasted under the fjord you are floating across. When it opens, this ferry route ends.

What is being built underneath you

Rogfast will be 26.7 km long and reach 392 metres below sea level, which will make it the world's longest and deepest subsea road tunnel. It runs between Randaberg, just north of Stavanger, and Bokn, in twin bores of two lanes each.

Roughly halfway along, under the island of Kvitsøy, there is a grade-separated interchange blown out of solid rock — two levels, on and off ramps, two roundabouts and a spur that spirals up to the surface. The opening is planned for 2033, and the tunnel is expected to cut Stavanger to Bergen by about 40 minutes.

⚠ The toll is already on your ticket

This is the part worth knowing at the till. The Rogfast levy has been collected on every crossing here for over a decade, bundled with the fare rather than shown as a separate line most travellers notice.

It is a normal Norwegian arrangement — infrastructure part-funded by the users of the thing it replaces — but it is unusual to be able to point at a specific ferry and say that its passengers have been paying for its own deletion since 2013.

The crossing itself

Mortavika to Årsvågen takes about 24 minutes, and our timetable holds 116 sailings in this direction and 113 coming back — among the highest counts on this site. Departures run at short intervals from early morning until late.

The route is part of E39, Norway's west coast trunk road, and is operated by Fjord1. Mortavika is on the Rennesøy side, toward Stavanger; Årsvågen is on Bokn, toward Haugesund and Bergen.

How to use a ferry that runs this often

You do not plan around it. With departures every twenty minutes or so, the crossing behaves like a traffic light rather than a timetable: you arrive, you queue, you board, and the worst case is one sailing's wait.

There is no booking. Payment is automatic through AutoPASS number plate recognition, and foot passengers travel free.

Until 2033

Nothing changes. This remains the E39 crossing, the traffic keeps growing, and the ferries keep running at high frequency because there is no alternative route worth taking.

What will change is abrupt rather than gradual: on the day Rogfast opens, a crossing carrying hundreds of sailings a week stops existing. It is worth taking once for that reason alone.