OC Transpo misses ridership targets for four straight months

An OC Transpo user paying for a transit fare. (Dave Charbonneau/CTV News Ottawa)

OC Transpo missed its ridership targets in the first four months of the year, as ridership continues to struggle coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report for the Transit Commission shows there were 5.9 million passenger trips on buses and the O-Train in April, below the 6.6 million passenger trip target.

April was the lowest ridership month so far for the transit service this year, after six million passenger trips in January, 6.1 million trips in February and 6.2 million trips in March.

The report shows OC Transpo was forecasting 26 million passenger trips through the January to April period, but only saw 24.2 million passengers.

Staff say fare revenue was $12.8 million in April, below the $14.2 million target.  The report shows fare revenue is $5.9 million below budget through the first four months of the year.

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Cancelled trips

Approximately 100 bus trips a day continue to be cancelled across the OC Transpo network, according to the report.

Statistics show 98.8 per cent of the 8,137 scheduled trips on weekdays were delivered in April.

Staff say the main reasons for the cancelled trips are not enough operators, on-street service adjustments due to traffic congestion, road closures and detours.

The three routes with the most route cancellations in April were O-Train Line 2 Replacement Buses (136 cancelled trips in April), Route 11 (124 cancelled trips in April) and Route 7 (105 cancelled trips).

According to the report, 78 per cent of buses operating every 16 minutes or less were on time 78 per cent of the time in April, down from 79 per cent in March.

OC Transpo's target is to have trips on time 85 per cent of the time.