Owned by TransLink and operated by the Coast Mountain Bus Company, the SeaBus forms an important part of the region's integrated public transportation system.

The SeaBus fleet currently consists of four vessels, with the most recent ship—the MV Burrard Chinook—entering service July 22, 2021.

During the evenings (after 9:00 pm) and early Saturday mornings (until 7:00 am), service is reduced to a 30-minute schedule with only one ferry operating.

In 2017, the SeaBus carried over 17,000 riders on average per weekday and transported an estimated 5.84 million people between Vancouver and the North Shore of Burrard Inlet.

In 2018, a seismic and accessibility upgrade of the Waterfront terminal began, which included escalator replacements and the construction of a new staircase to improve foot traffic flow.

In addition to serving commuters, Lonsdale Quay has become an important tourist destination, with a hotel and public market.

In 1989, the North Vancouver terminal was designated the "Charles A. Spratt SeaBus Terminal", in honour of Charles Spratt, Project Manager of the SeaBus project from conception to launch, and Marine Manager of the system until his retirement in 1988.

[7] Each terminal consists of two docks surrounded by an E-shaped structure: passengers board from the central waiting hall, which is separated into two waiting areas (each serving one dock) by partitions and turnstiles, and disembark onto a side platform (a Spanish solution).

The third vessel, the Burrard Pacific Breeze,[10] began service in December 2009, and TransLink operated all three ferries during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

At that point the agency announced its intention to keep all three vessels in the expectation that funding becomes available for three-vessel service in the future.

[13] In late 2012, TransLink announced it had selected Damen Group of the Netherlands to build the fourth SeaBus vessel, the MV Burrard Chinook; the project was expected to cost approximately $25 million.

[14][15] Construction on the fourth SeaBus was delayed until November 2017,[16] at which point the project cost had grown to $32.2 million.

To accommodate Vancouver's Expo 86, the city's then-transit authority BC Transit changed the design scheme to white with one red and one blue stripe as well as a BC flag label, matching SeaBus with the then newly built SkyTrain system and newly ordered bus fleet.

This remained until the 1999/2000 handover of BC Transit to Metro Vancouver's present transportation administration, TransLink.

The paint scheme has since been white (or grey) with blue and golden yellow strips across the sides of the ferries.

Three years later, the North Vancouver Ferry and Power Company was created, took over the existing service, and built a new craft called St. George.

It ran faithfully with its Union Diesel until 1958 when it was tied up at the foot of Lonsdale Ave along with North Vancouver Ferry No.

It remained there until 2002 when the City of North Vancouver and the federal courts had it demolished after a long-standing dispute over who would be responsible if it sank and concern that the hull was in danger of imminent collapse.

There were plans in the 1960s to build a tunnel under Burrard Inlet which would have connected to the proposed freeways on the Vancouver side.

[29] The ferry proposal was included in a 1975 report by the Greater Vancouver Regional District,[30] and the current SeaBus ferries began operating the Waterfront Station–Lonsdale Quay route on June 17, 1977,[19][31] initially as part of the Transportation Division of BC Hydro.

For the first few years of service, the automated fare machines (the first in Vancouver's transit system) at the two SeaBus terminals printed an impression of the rider's coins onto a cash register-style receipt, which could become very long if fares were paid in small-denomination coins such as pennies.