Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Caller. It's Thursday the 20th of March.

You might recall 10 days or so ago that I was talking to a firm from Sweden, which is very keen to bring in electric hydrofoil ferries along the River Thames.

Well, more Thames news for you today because I've been

finding out about a splendid new vessel which is going to be shuttling across the Thames

between Canary Wharf and the Rotherhithe Peninsula in East London. What makes it really interesting is that this is intended to lure more

people actually to cycle. At the moment it's a really difficult crossing to make and the idea is

you've got this cycle on, cycle off ferry which is going to make the whole business of getting maybe from

South London to Canary Wharf all the more attractive. I've also been hearing from the boss

of the company, Uber boat by Thames Clippers, that there is the possibility of these things

happening further downstream because of a fact I hadn't thought about,

which is that in order to allow ships to clear bridges

that are downstream of tower bridge,

they have to be really high and they have to start really far inland,

and actually that disadvantages cyclists and pedestrians

who just want to make shorter crossings,

so there's plenty of room for more expansion.

Here's what we talked about.

Sean Collins, chief executive of Uberboat by Thames Clippers.

First of all, tell us what the last quarter century has been like since you set the thing up.

Busy.

Significant growth profile and innovation all the

way through really, but really now pushing the boundaries. Let's talk first of all about what you're doing

...