New numbers from the city show that the majority of primary and secondary bus routes in Windsor are arriving on time and overloaded again this year.
Prioritizing traffic lights for buses and adjusting the number of vehicles and hours for certain routes is how the city keeps buses on schedule.
But fixing crowded buses — a problem Transit Windsor executive director Tyson Cragg calls a “good problem to have” — is tied to the city’s wait for new buses ordered in 2023.
“I’m confident that the fleet that we have incoming is going to have a major impact on the reliability that we have,” said Cragg.
The data from the city is part of a new push for transparency from councillors who act as the service’s board of directors. They asked for more performance metrics from Transit Windsor.
Buses overloaded
Those metrics show that the system is missing industry standards for boardings per hour on primary and secondary routes for the second year in a row.
“Once you get over 35 (boardings per hour), you’re looking at situations where you have standing loads on buses,” said Cragg.
“Higher numbers are indicative of service concerns: overload situations and missed passengers.”
The metrics are up on every route except the Crosstown 2 and the tunnel bus to Detroit.
Routes like the Transway 1A, Dominion 5 (now Route 115) and Dougall 6 are the city’s busiest routes, averaging more than 50 people boarding each hour over a day of service.
Cragg said it’s a good thing from an efficiency perspective but means there likely needs to be more buses per hour on those routes.
New buses will help, but delays in arrival
When asked what the city can do to get those numbers in line, Cragg said that new buses the city has already ordered will help.
“Newer equipment is going to make our service more reliable,” he said.
The city has 19 buses already purchased back in the summer of 2023 but the first one just arrived this week because of delays with the supplier.
Cragg expects the rest to be delivered by February.
“It’ll be pretty much a full 18 months by the time we receive these things,” said Cragg.
The other solutions were not made public by city staff during the meeting.
Transit Windsor is sharing more data with the public that shows how the system is performing. The CBC’s Chris Ensing looks at what will it take to make improvements.
“There are solutions out there that will be coming before council, hopefully as part of the 2025 budget,” said Jelena Payne, who oversees Transit Windsor in her role as commissioner of economic development and innovation.
Cragg said those plans, in addition to new scheduling software and the delayed new buses, will improve the service.
“Where we’ve been successful is really reallocating not only the hours but also the vehicles to be much more efficient in how the service is being delivered.”
Transit Windsor’s on-time performance is now at 78 per cent, same as it was this time last year, which Cragg said is above the industry standard of 75 per cent.
But the winter months could drag that performance down, with the final on-time performance for 2023 hitting 68 per cent.