The TideRunner FR-12 is a 24-passenger amphibious surface-effect vehicle produced by Kelpline Logistics for transit across GLMZ's extensive flooded districts, drainage canals, and partially submerged lakefront infrastructure zones. It operates on a captured air cushion that allows it to skim across water at approximately 85 km/h while also transitioning onto degraded road surfaces, flood ramps, and semi-submerged loading docks without requiring specialized infrastructure at either end of a route. The FR-12's hull is a composite of recycled high-density polyethylene panels over an aluminum space frame — utilitarian and cheap to repair with materials available in low-tier districts. Twin ducted fans at the stern provide thrust; a flexible rubber skirt system handles the surface transition between water and land with minimal slowdown.

Kelpline originally developed the FR-12 for cargo logistics in flooded outer-ring zones where conventional road vehicles are inoperable and the AquaSpine DS-3 submersible tubes are not installed. The design was subsequently licensed to several municipal transit authorities as a stopgap passenger solution, and an unlicensed gray-market variant — the 'FR-12 Ghost' — has proliferated in the outer canals with stripped navigation transponders and reinforced gunwales. The FR-12's lack of fixed infrastructure requirements makes it uniquely valuable in areas of active urban decay or deliberate flooding by drainage authority negligence. Its Saltmarsh Telecom AtmoMesh-linked navigation array uses air quality differential data as a secondary positioning system when GPS spoofing is active in contested canal zones.