Winnipeg Transit adds extra buses to meet demand on busy routes

Winnipeg Transit started using a new strategy Tuesday morning to meet growing demand on transit lines across the city.

Residents may start to notice pairs of "standby buses" positioned at various points, Winnipeg Transit director Dave Wardrop said. The vehicleswill bethere to help bolster service on routes seeing higher-than-expected demand.

It's a way forWinnipeg Transitto be more nimble, saidWardrop

"Having some standby buses available throughout the city in certain locationswe can call upon when we do have call-ins from the operators that indicate the buses are overcrowded or routes are overcrowded, because there is daily variation," he said.

Maintenance backlog resolved: transit director

Themaintenance backlog that caused18 or 19 routes in Winnipeg to havefewer buses than normal earlier this fallhas also been resolved, Wardrop said. Bus schedules were updated at 7:30 p.m.Monday night.

• Winnipeg's top bureaucrat sorry for sudden transit bus shortage

"In essence what we've done is we've restored approximately 30 runs that were pulled out of service on approximately 18 or 19 routes," said Wardrop.

"We thank people for their patience during this time."

In September, more than 100 buses were off the road for repairs. As of Tuesday morning, only 57 buses are out of service, said Wardrop.

Winnipeg Transit has revised how it maintains vehicles, deferred the retirement of some buses and purchased new vehicles to prevent future maintenance backlogs, he said.

The city continues to have a low percentage of extra buses, Wardrop added. The industry standard is to have about 20 per cent extra buses available in case there are mechanical issues. Winnipeg has 10 to 11 per cent, he said.

"It's a fine line between running an efficient service and a service where the risk of disruption is unacceptably high," Wardrop said.

"We were ambitious in our efforts, and we'll be moving closer to the industry norm in terms of our spares ratio but in the overall picture we'll still be on the leaner end."

For information about bus schedules, riders are advised to go to the Winnipeg Transit website, call TeleBusor contact 311.