Who runs this, and how it works

Author

NautiVia is built and run by Gal Tidhar, a software engineer based in Zagreb with over ten years building production systems — most recently at Shopify, Novu and Sedric.ai, and before that at Siemens PLM. In 2026 he founded ZaZet Solutions d.o.o., a small Zagreb software studio, and built NautiVia as one of its products.

More on his background: gal.tidhar.org.il.

How the queue light works

croatianferries.com reads live images from HAK's own traffic cameras at eight Croatian ferry ports — Valbiska, Merag, Porozina, Brestova, Drvenik, Orebić, Biograd and Gaženica. An object detector we run ourselves (not a third-party API) counts how much of the approach lane is occupied and turns that into green, yellow or red for that port.

We show a light, never a car count. A rough visual count from a single camera angle invites more confidence than it deserves; a three-colour state is honest about what the camera can actually tell you.

A reading typically reaches the site within a couple of minutes of the camera capturing it (detection, then a short cache), and every live block on the site carries its own timestamp so you can see how fresh it is rather than trust a colour that might be stale.

Where the ferry timetables and fares come from

Routes, ports, sailings and fares are read from AZOLPP — the Croatian coastal-line agency's own register — and cross-checked against each operator's published timetable. As of this data pull that covers 67 scheduled routes across 107 ports. When a timetable, fare or notice changes upstream, we re-pull and republish; we don't hand-maintain a copy that can drift from the source.

Where the places data comes from

nautivia.app's places database currently holds 22,456 places — fuel docks, moorings, shelters, restaurants, shops and help points — mostly along the Croatian coast and reaching into neighbouring waters, with 52,542 reviews attached. It is assembled from public sources with provenance kept per record, and rebuilt periodically rather than edited by hand entry by entry.

What this can't do yet

• Camera angle limits some ports: one lane at some cameras is too far or too oblique for the detector to read reliably, so a couple of ports show a coarser signal than the rest until a better vantage is found.
• The queue light is a real-time estimate from a camera and a detector, not a ground-truth vehicle count — treat it as a strong signal, not a guarantee.
• Timetables and fares change seasonally and around operator notices; always confirm your departure with the operator before you travel.
• Wind, weather and place data on nautivia.app describe conditions as last recorded, not a live forecast for every location.

How often it updates

Queue readings refresh roughly every couple of minutes during the camera's operating hours. Timetables, fares and notices refresh whenever AZOLPP or an operator publishes a change. The places database is rebuilt from its source pulls on an ongoing basis, not continuously.