Alayne McGregor
If you’re sick and tired of your route 6 buses never showing up, the stats back you up.
According to figures presented at the April 11 Transit Commission meeting, route 6 had the highest number of undelivered trips in March: 131. It was followed by the LRT Line 2 replacement bus (129 non-existent trips) and Route 12 (110).
Reasons for the lost trips included not enough operators (43 percent), mechanical breakdowns (22 percent), no bus available (4 percent), and on-street issues such as congestion, protests, detours, road-closures, or on-board incidents (32 percent).
On an average weekday in March, 104 out of 8,061 scheduled trips were not delivered. Overall bus reliability in March was 98.8 percent, the highest in 13 months.
LRT reliability continued to improve, with 99.4 percent uptime in March in a continuing upwards trend.
No on-time performance numbers were available for frequent bus routes (15 minute or more frequent operation), which includes almost all routes running in Centretown. The reason given at the meeting was that Transpo is working to provide a better indicator of the reliability of those routes and feels that it is more important for customers that buses arrive regularly and evenly spaced. It will be working to ensure that the time between each bus remains consistent rather sticking exactly to the schedule, and will present a new indicator of service regularity in the future.
On the other hand, Councillor Wilson Lo argued that sticking to the schedule was important, especially when it meant missing a transfer to a less-frequent route and risking a half-hour wait. On a five-minute schedule, this may not matter, he said, but it does on a 15-minute schedule.
For less frequent routes, the on-time performance was 79 percent, the highest in the last 13 months.
Ridership was up 13 percent in February 2024 from the year before, but five percent under forecast, meaning $1 million under budget. Transpo attributed this to fewer full-fare adult passes being bought – in other words, fewer full-time commuters. Councillor Sean Devine asked Transpo to investigate a “viable alternative” for employees who only come into the office two to three days a week. But committee chair Glen Gower said that this issue had been debated at committee a few months before and should not be further discussed.
OC Transpo has revealed proposed changes and service reductions to its routes in a “New Ways to Bus” page on octranspo.com . The implementation date for those has not been announced. But route 6 riders will be glad to know it’s one of the few routes with no changes.