Federal government funds autonomous Kiel fjord ferry with EUR 3.3 million

The third funding phase is meant to turn earlier research into realistic applications and to expand the digital test field and real-world lab, moving an autonomous, electrically powered passenger ferry across Kiel Fjord towards regular operation.

Federal Transport Minister Schnieder handed over a EUR 3.3 million funding decision for the innovation project CAPTN Förde Areal III in Kiel on 28 May 2026, in the presence of Schleswig-Holstein's economy and transport minister Claus Ruhe Madsen. The acronym CAPTN (Clean Autonomous Public Transport Network) stands for a travel chain of autonomous electric vehicles on water and on land, for example an on-demand ferry with a connection to a networked bus. In the third funding phase the digital test field and real-world lab are to be expanded so that an autonomous passenger ferry can cross Kiel Fjord under real operating conditions; earlier projects in the Digital Test Fields for Waterways programme had already produced the research catamaran MS Wavelab and a test field (LOK Report, 29 May 2026).