City councillor calls for bus-hailing tech as answer to low transit ridership

Acity councilloris pushing for Ottawa to adopt a new transit model,one that works on-demandlike anUber,as OC Transpo continues to see low ridership throughout the pandemic.

Coun.Carol Anne Meehan said Ottawa's transit system is designed to bring people from the suburbs to the city's core, but as more people work from homethe city is losing about $1 million a week running buses that no one is taking.

"We can't afford to continue bleeding money the way we are," she said.

According to OC Transpo, ridership has fluctuated throughout lockdowns and stay-at-home orders since the pandemic began. In March 2020, it dropped by 85 per cent.In January of this year, ridership wasabout 18 per cent of normal levels. It rose slightly to 21 per cent in February.

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Meehan said she's confident people will return to the service"but nowhere near the numbers ... previous to the pandemic. It's going to take a long time."

That's why she's pushing for Ottawato follow in Belleville, Ont.'s footsteps.It was the first place in North America to launchan on-demand transit servicefor an overnight bus route.

Meehan said the service wouldn't replace OC Transpoentirely, but would runin conjunction with the busesonunderused routes.

No bus routes, no bus schedule

Using Belleville's website, riders schedule a ride, indicating their pickup anddrop-off time.The software processes that dataconstantly updating itself to optimize all scheduled ridesand maps the best route to get all riders to their destinations as quickly as possible.

The site also sends riders confirmation notices by emailand simultaneously sends the pickup information to the busdriver via a tablet.

According to Paul Buck, Belleville'stransit manager, the averagewait time for a bus is nine minutes, while the average trip takes about 12 minutes.

"The demand for on-demand transit was incredible. Within the first couple of weeks of service, we had over 200 registered users riding regularly," he said.

Ottawa 'exploring' its options

Like everywhere else, Belleville saw ridership drop since the pandemic, but Buck said the new system has allowed the city to continue operating more efficiently.

"We could cover that same amount of ground with eight buses and still meet all of our customer demand, still run our full hours of service."

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In a statement to CBC, Pat Scrimgeour, Ottawa'sdirector of transit customer systems and planning, wrote"we are currently exploring on-demand transit products, services and availability."

"This work is in a preliminary state and only exploratory at this stage and we have spoken with multiple vendors to gather information. At this time, no simulations are scheduled with any possible suppliers."