Cebu city

Thirty-one sailings a week cross the Mactan Channel from Cebu City to Lapu-Lapu, taking 30 minutes and running from 06:00 to 21:00 on a single daily calendar.

Two bridges already link the two cities, and a third opened in 2022, so this is a boat competing with roads rather than replacing them — which on a channel where the bridge traffic backs up for kilometres at peak is a competition it can win.

Cebu is the Philippines' second city and the hub of its domestic shipping, with long-haul routes reaching Manila, Mindanao and the Visayas from the same waterfront. Metro Ferry works this short crossing. Against sailings measured in days elsewhere in the network, half an hour across a channel is the shortest thing in the country's schedule.