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June 2008 Dear Guests, We don’t take lightly any increase in ticket price. We agonize over even the smallest increase as we remain sensitive to the travel budgets of you, our riders. It is therefore with a good deal of reticence that we announce that, due to the unprecedented increase in the cost of diesel fuel, we must impose a fuel surcharge on each ticket. At the beginning of June of last year, fuel cost us $2.22 per gallon. This month’s prices are currently running at $4.45 per gallon. That represents an increase in costs to our operation of over $1,700 per day. Sadly, we are unable to sustain that increase on our own. Our margins do not allow for it. The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission has reviewed our fuel consumption records and passenger figures and has granted us their maximum allowed fuel surcharge of $3 per passenger. This is still short of the over $5 per passenger fare increase required to just breakeven on our fuel costs. However, we have decided to try shouldering a portion of the expense for the time being. We wish to assure you that we do not profit from this surcharge and pledge to decrease it on whole dollar increments should our fuel costs drop accordingly. If there is any good news in this, it is that the environment is benefiting. The EPA passed a law late last year requiring that ferries burn diesel fuel with an ultra low sulfur content. Although the additional refining processes required for the cleaner fuel has added significantly to the cost of the fuel, our ferries have now become an even more environmentally friendly way of traveling on Narragansett Bay We are now both shortening the distance traveled by auto as well as burning cleaner fuel. Thanks very much for your patronage. We appreciate your confidence and your business.
Sincerely,
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