While bus reliability at OC Transpo appears to be improving, the transit operator is still struggling to get delivery of new buses that would help replace its aging fleet.
“Things are getting a little bit better, but there’s still a huge reliability problem,” Ajay Ramachandran told councillors at the March 12 Transit Committee meeting.
Ramachandran, with Better Transit Ottawa, said, that while things appeared stable last week, in terms of cancellations, he pointed to data indicating that routes are still being “cancelled because the bus was never available for it.”
Data shared by OC Transpo shows that many buses were not in service in February. For example, of 300 40-foot diesel-powered buses in the fleet, only 207 were in service that month. The transit operator says it is increasing maintenance of the older buses, since it has been unable to purchase used buses.
“We are expanding the scope of our original bus refurbishment plan so that we can get a few more healthy and productive years out of the buses already within our fleet,” said Chad Maahs, OC Transpo’s manager of bus operations.
A cornerstone of the bus replacement plan is electric buses. When OC Transpo announced its $1B Zero Emission Bus Project in 2021, the promise was to have a fully electric fleet by 2036. There have been many delays since with the procurement of the buses. And of the 56 40-foot electric buses received, only 20 were in service on average in February.
Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard wanted to know why so few are on the road.
OC Transpo Interim General Manager Troy Charter said the electric buses represent “a major transformational project,” and integrating them into the system requires many steps, including training of maintenance staff and bus operators.
Maahs told the committee that this is normal.
“Our current level of e-bus availability is in line with what other large Canadian cities experience as they adopt e-buses into their fleets and work on implementation,” he said.
Still, transit advocates would like to see things more quickly.
“OC Transpo is not going to consistently have enough buses and service anytime soon due to the unreliability of the fleet,” said Ramachandran.
