On Thursday, the 13th of February 2025, Transit Commission ... I mean, Transit Committee met for the first time in nearly three months to receive updates from OC Transpo's management on a variety of information. The video link can be found here.
Before we begin, note that Vice-Chair Cathy Curry has been replaced with Steve Desroches.
Routine Updates
The presentation by GM Renée Amilcar starts at around 6:50 in the video.
She begins with an explanation of the Severe Storm Schedule that was implemented on the 13th of February. This schedule reduced service on storm days, with the replacement of many (but not all) of articulated buses to avoid delays, which happened anyways.
Strong winds blew snow onto the tracks, and if you'll remember, there was single tracking as OC Transpo had to remove snow from parts of the line.
Trains did not run overnight, as OC Transpo did not have enough operators.
With the beginning of the regular report, she reported that Para Transpo received new Ram Creative Carriage buses on the 22nd January. On the 27th January, the fare readers on Para Transpo were activated.
OC Transpo has onboarded (get it?) Marko Kroenke as Director of Engineering Services.
The Five-Year Roadmap and a commitment to mislead
Timestamp 15:40.
OC Transpo loves big words. They're "transparent and accountable," we're told, with more KPIs and committees than ever!
As I covered last month, the LRT sub-committee has already disbanded. The City claims to be committed to transparency, but they don't seem committed to the commitment.
The best example: in a sneak reveal, hidden in esoteric phrasing at the end of a run-on sentence of an ignored memo, OC Transpo revealed that (one of) the true reason(s) for the lack of Sunday service on Lines 2/4 was because of a lack of operators.
We've heard about passenger displays and vehicle maintenance, but not this. OC Transpo told us, four weeks after the line opened, that we don't actually have enough operators to open the line, which has certainly never been mentioned.
In fact, at the media briefing for the launch opening on 6th December, when asked if a lack of operators was a motivation for the phased opening, the answer was very clear: "no." (timestamp 1:42:15)
And while OC Transpo provides more KPIs than ever, these KPIs are distorted, misleading, or plain false, I am increasingly believing. There is no public roadmap, besides "we are working on it," for fixing the issues at OC Transpo.
The upcoming lawsuit against SNC Lavali- I mean, AtkinsRéalis may provide further details. We eagerly await details that have not been publicly revealed.
There will be a scorecard update in April, according to Amilcar. I am taking bets on OC Transpo management giving themselves all "A"s, though getting away with it will be harder if a strike occurs ...
OC Transpo claims to be customer-focused. Anyone who has used OC Transpo in the past few years is welcome to laugh with me.
OC Transpo is also allegedly improving reliability. I am going to withhold judgement on this one. Do note that Amilcar, in a historic trend going back to 2010, bragged about OC Transpo's high standards and KPIs. They are not meeting those standards.
The roadmap is nothing special. The only item of note, "collective bargaining with two major transit unions," is what the literary critics call foreshadowing for a possible strike in April. And I am hearing that this strike is very likely.
Rail Updates
Timestamp 25:00.
On the 10th of February, the Monday three days before this meeting, OC Transpo released a memorandum on, quote, "weekday off-peak service on O-Train Line 1."
After the halving of midday and evening service on our main transit trunk, ridership shockingly fell far below projections - no wonder we keep missing our targets. How much?
Projections called for 2900 boardings/hour (per direction) on the line. We got 2400, which is 80% of projections. This compares with peak periods, where ridership was 95% of projected. Or rather, we got an average of 2400 boardings/hour-direction.
The capacity is for 3600 passengers/hour-direction. Bear in mind that this is crush load capacity. If we are reaching this level off-peak, or at peak, then something has seriously gone wrong.
Based on average load, which is not the average experience of riders (remember, more people will experience a crowded train by definition), we are two-thirds of the way to crush load. This is an "adjust[ment] to accurately reflect ridership," according to the director of transit operations, Troy Charter. OC Transpo is trying to gaslight us all.
Apparently, volume was "close to expected." This may explain the consistently-below expected revenue projections, where 80% is "close enough."
Lines 2/4 opened on the 6th January. Link here. So far, service has been overall good. Customer feedback has been good at OC Transpo, while the service delivery has generally been reliable at 98.5%, which meets targets.
There have been 300,000 riders in its first four weeks of operation, including a Saturday, or twenty days of operation; park and ride utilisation grew 69%. Unsurprisingly, South Keys, Bayview, and Carleton were the busiest stations. During the question time, ridership on the two lines combined (Lines 2/4) was said to be around 15,000/day, while the standalone airport line (Line 4) was 900/day, or five riders/trip. This is below the average for the bus network, on par with a low-ridership suburban connector.
Before the opening of seven-day service, there is planned work on Lines 2/4. Passenger information will be updated, damaged glass at stations repaired (including one panel at South Keys that was broken in pre-operation photos), and station door fixes. There will also be inspection exercises.
The goal for Sunday service is "definitely before New Ways to Bus [27 April] and hopefully it will be before that." Which is a long time away.
On the number of operators on the Lines 2/4, we currently have 53 certified operators, from 103 who have started training. We have 20 operators currently in training; this makes 73.
The goal for the number of operators for seven-day service is 67 operators, with OC Transpo aiming for 76 operators with allowances for spare operators, attrition, and more.
In the video, starting at 32:10, you can see further details on OC Transpo's operator training regime.
More Updates
Staff also presented future KPI measures for safety, undoubtedly a temporary change before we get another set of KPIs at the start of 2026. They can be viewed at 37:50.
Staff presented some numbers.
First, ridership was 67.9 million on the bus and train system. This is a 5.8% increase from 2023, whose ridership was 64.9 million; ridership has recovered to 69.6% of pre-pandemic ridership. 2019 ridership was 97.5 million. December ridership was lower than 2023, a concerning trend.
Bus service delivery was 98.0%, if their numbers are to be believed. At a cancellation rate of 2.0%, this represents OC Transpo missing their target by a factor of four. Rail delivery, on the other hand, was 98.8%.
Bus regularity, a meaningless metric with no context, no definitions, and certainly no truth, is 82%. Punctuality is 74%, which I also don't believe, but it's what we have.
Finally, Para-Transpo on time performance was 93%. As I do not use Para Transpo, take from that what you will.
According to Transit App scores, the percentage of "happy" customers is 88%.
On Para Transpo, the average wait time to reserve a spot is 7 minutes, but with a very large rise peaking at perhaps half an hour (OC Transpo's graph does not include a y-axis, because who needs context?) in the fall.
Meanwhile, the percentage of online bookings has doubled from 21% to 40%.
Complaints seem to have stayed relatively steady over the year. You can see the slide here: 
During the question period, staff said they hoped to have notifications for incoming buses by the end of the month.
See more granular ridership data here: 
Granular on-time performance metrics:
And granular "service delivery" metrics here. Note the difference to my own bus cancellations chart image above; the graph looks very different when you have no y-axis and can fuddle with lines and scale to make yourselves look good.
Of the bus routes not delivered, 40% (0.8% of overall trips) were cancelled due to on street adjustments (ie. traffic); 30% (0.6% of all trips) due to operator shortages, and 35% (0.7%) due to fleet issues, both mechanical and lack of buses in general.
Amilcar said that operator shortages included the mandatory break times from late buses, leading to trip cancellations; she also said that when the fleet shortage is alleviated, they hoped to run what are known as RADs (run as directed) buses in Toronto, which would "fill in" for cancelled buses.
The worst affected routes in January were the 11, 6, and B2.
Fleet Management ... Not
The reliability of the fleet continues to deteriorate as the buses age. Unfortunately, the passage of time was impossible to predict, and we could not have procured buses in the early 2020s at a lower price, to replace our aging fleet. Blame City Council, and also your stopwatch. Para Transpo is facing similar issues.
A maintenance plan is being implemented to streamline bus maintenance and reduce workload on mechanics. Whether this is another short-sighted "savings" measure, or an actual plan to improve reliability, is still up in the air.
As for the fleet replacement, you may remember that money was allocated to buy used articulated buses from other cities in the budget. None could be found in Canada, so OC Transpo is looking abroad. They are also looking at joining with Toronto's Metrolinx to procure 40 or more new New Flyer buses with a delivery date possibly around the beginning of 2027. These would be diesel buses.
Speaking of diesel, OC Transpo views a 40-foot electric bus as an adequate replacement for a larger articulated bus, which by their count, offers double the capacity. Do I need to explain the problem?
On Para Transpo's fleet problems, new, smaller six metre minibuses have been piloted, and delivery has already begun. They are also expecting to receive 76 seven metre buses; this would be adequate to more-or-less replace the entire Para Transpo fleet.
The Electric Bus Program
Timestamp 1:00:00.
As of the meeting, there were eight electric buses in service. Four were the pilots delivered in 2021, with the other four being new buses delivered since August of 2024. Three were on property, and were scheduled to enter service since the meeting; three more were already in Ottawa.
Buses are being procured from both New Flyer and Nova.
Electric buses are infrastructure intensive. There are structural elements to be done beforethe electrical work (ie. charging) can begin.
Testing and commissioning requires significant work before the buses can enter service. First, there must be a third-party testing process at the manufacturing plants; then, OC Transpo engineering performs many tests at the vendor's, before delivery to OC Transpo. Final equipment (say, IT) and inspections is only installed at OC Transpo's garages, at the final step of testing.
The delivery schedule plans for the delivery of 350 buses in addition to the four pilot buses, enough to replace the articulated fleet (assuming that with our foolish capacity management, the E-Buses are a 1:1 replacement which they are not), by the end of 2027. 26 buses will be delivered until March in the first tranche; 80 buses in the second tranche, from September this year to January; 124 buses in the third tranche from April 2026 to the end of that year, and 120 buses from January 2027 to August of that same year.
Take another look at the infrastructure. Currently, work is ongoing at the main St. Laurent Garage in preparation for electric buses, with work anticipated for completion in May. Work is also underway at St. Laurent North, with a completion target of May 2026.
At the end of this year, a new building will begin construction on what is currently outdoor bus storage west of the North Garage, holding what seems to be articulated and (sometimes) 40-foot buses based on satellite footage.
Electric buses cannot be charged outdoors, at least, not under OC Transpo's plan; given the current outdoor storage and larger space requirements of electric buses (for charging equipment and the like; buses cannot be parked tighter in the garage to squeeze in some more vehicles without the requisite chargers), a new building is apparently necessary.
Given all of the additional electricity required, a new substation will be built during construction season this year, which will be situated at the northwest corner of the OC Transpo site. There will be other utility work as well, shown in the diagram below:
A timeline is available in the video if you wish to view it. Timestamp at 1:06:05.
The procurement schedule is quite aggressive, in combination with the articulated bus purchase that OC Transpo is investigating. If they can pull it off, it will help alleviate our reliability (if not capacity) issues.
Thoughts
Being a first-of-year meeting with minimal cause for controversy, this meeting was lots of news very fast, without the circus that accompanied the Transit Commission meetings of last fall. However, OC Transpo's memorandums and hidden implications continue to reveal structural failings in the organisation, which have severely impacted transit service in Ottawa.
We did not receive a report on progress of the Stage 2 extensions, despite the LRT Subcommittee's disbanding. I hope to see city staff prepare regular reports on this progress, as well of the E-Bus program, at future Transit Committee meetings.
Next in the article lineup is a Route 51 snapshot and the final part of the ridership analysis. Stay tuned, and I'll see you next time.
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