This meeting brings mostly good news. An end to the 100,000 km limit on the Line 1 Cartridge Bearing Assemblies (CBAs) is in sight, and bus reliability continues to slowly climb upwards. However, service delivery will remain a problem in the foreseeable future, and general manager Rick Leary will continue to face difficult choices.
Note: after I finished writing this post, but before I posted it, OC Transpo announced the return of full double-car service on Line 1 on 8 June.
The video link to the meeting is here.
Documents:
- Update Presentation (English)
- Inquiry - Number of conventional buses that have caught fire
- Inquiry - Compensation for Transit Users
- Transit Services 5-Year Roadmap: SCORECARD
- Annual Update – Transit Services 5-Year Roadmap
Update
To begin the meeting OC Transpo bragged about a 70% fall in undelivered trips since January. However, this doesn't include the 200+ daily TCTs (temporarily cancelled trips) cancelled at the bottom of the fleet crisis. OC Transpo has not been forthcoming on which trips are TCTs, which effectively makes them a cancellation to customers; and the 2700 undelivered trips would truthfully be rendered as 6700 trips - that suddenly paints a less rosy picture.
Of note, the number of trips cancelled due to explicit "mechanical issues" has always been low, but this includes neither a total shortage of buses nor propagating delays.
As of the meeting, 111 electric buses were available for daily service, which is a significant increase over the 62 buses available in early April.
However, maintenance on the remaining fleet remains a problem. The ratio of preventative versus reactive work is 50/50, compared to an industry standard of 80/20 (!). OC Transpo is doing an excessive amount of reactive work, and this leads to them falling being in preventative work, a vicious cycle which feeds itself.
OC Transpo aims to raise the ratio to 65/35 by the end of the year by receiving new buses and retiring old ones.
OC Transpo has begun restoring some double-car service on Line 1 (see note in introduction), and frequency remains at 3-4 minutes during peak periods. OC Transpo has found a semi-permanent supply of CBAs, and will restore full service on 8 June with an availability of 34 trains. The timeline for Stage 2 East will then be finalized in the summer, as the extension's opening is currently delayed by a lack of trains for testing.
The bearing monitors have been ordered and have begun arriving in Ottawa.
OC Transpo's self-evaluated CVOR violation rate is 15%, a new record for OC Transpo. However, the preventable collision rate is still high at 1.00 per 100,000 km in-service last month and 1.10 per 100,000 km over the past twelve months, above the target of 0.69.
March ridership fell 10% from 6.6 million in 2025 to 5.9 million in 2026, which continues the trend of downward ridership. Meanwhile, April Para Transpo ridership has slightly increased, sitting at 81,500 trips.
April 2026 bus service delivery was 98.7%, which is 0.8% below the target; alternatively, this is expressed as 1.3% cancellations, which is 2.5x the target. Delivery during the PM Peak remains noticeably below that of other periods. This does not include the TCTs for which there is still no return date, and would push the cancellation rate to over 6%.
Of the remaining trips, the routes with the highest cancellation rate are the 12 (4.7% cancellations), 6 (4.0%), and 7 (3.5%). Staff did not break down the cancellation causes, rendering that graph into a useless graphic which conveys no real information. The lack of useable y-axes remains a problem in OC Transpo presentations.
On-time performance on less frequent routes was 74% in April. Similarly, the PM Peak presented the greatest challenge to on-time performance; and in both graphs, the information presentation is an active hinderance to further analysis.
Cancellations on Lines 2/4 remained at 2.8% last month, which is also the twelve-month average.
Finally, on-time performance on Para Transpo was 95%, but the 30-minute window for Para Transpo raises questions about how well this reflects the actual user experience. This would be pressed by delegates, and the real quality of Para Transpo service remains a sore point between OC Transpo and its riders.
OC Transpo has modified their methodology yet again, this time on Line 1 - conspiratorially, this was deliberate to prevent useful comparison. Certainly, this change was effected to "pad" statistics and make the service appear more reliable than it actually was.
OC Transpo claims that Line 1 delivery was 99.7% in April, with a large trough in March due to freezing rain. But with methodologies constantly changing around us, it is hard to say whether this represents good service or not.
As for car-hours, the old metric, that remained low at 66.7%, meaning capacity remains low, slashed by a full 1/3.
Cancellations on Lines 2/4 remained at 2.8% last month, which is also the twelve-month average.
Ottawa's Transit (in)Action Plan
Timestamp at 22:45.
On 12 May, the Tuesday before Transit Committee, Mark Sutcliffe, Glen Gower, and Rick Leary announced their "Customer-First Action Plan" (and one that council was allegedly not informed of, according to Tim Tierney).
The plan consists of ten line items, but some of them are vague and represent more promises without real "action" to back them up.
The first item is "make O-Train service more reliable." Leary touted "incredible" reliability two days before a rail controller shortage forced an evening shutdown of Line 1 during the five month-old CBA situation, the same day Line 4 was closed due to an operator shortage, which kind of says it all.
Meanwhile, bus reliability is, according to Leary, the #1 and #2 issues reported to customer service. For the first time, OC Transpo has a mean distance between failure (MDBF) target - 10,000 km, an industry standard. This statistic measures how long buses run between mechanical failures, and currently sits below 6,000 km. The five-year action plan, introduced under Amilcar, did not have an MDBF target. Also notable is the fact that 17% of buses in service each day "have some difficulty staying in service" over the day. It's not clear whether this is an industry standard metric or what it conforms to, but Leary's target for this figure is 2%.
Additionally, on-time performance targets seem to have increased to 95%, from the previous 85%. However, these targets mean nothing if they are not met, and OC Transpo has consistently failed to live up to its targets.
The recent schedule changes included travel time changes on underscheduled routes including the 12, 30, 53, and 82. Leary said he hoped to adjust "like one third" of routes being adjusted for September; this would solve a significant problem in OC Transpo scheduling. However, he risks going overboard into too much padding, which became a significant problem at the TTC during his tenure.
In response, Jeff Leiper asked whether this would impact service frequency; staff said that this analysis was ongoing. He also asked about the impact of unreliability on capacity, as customers accumulate after delayed or bunched buses, and this compounds on the impact of service; staff gave a non-answer about factoring in capacity and adjusting service. This is an underrated factor in how many OC Transpo routes feel crowded; real capacity does not match paper capacity due to cancellations, especially in the crowded PM Peak, and delays and bunching create uneven crowding conditions.
In response to questions from Riley Brockington, staff said that OC Transpo has a goal of hiring twenty mechanics this year, with nine "net new" mechanics hired so far.
The plan also includes Para Transpo on the main page, rather than as an afterthought; Leary said that OC Transpo was "assessing opportunities" such as same-day booking and later operating hours.
Several delegations later spoke to long-time problems with Para Transpo service, including same-day bookings, the notification system for riders, and with safety issues, especially with the taxis.
The next strategy is called "putting customers first." This consists of "customer safety and experience," "communicating with customers," and "measuring what matters to customers" (note the lack of "presenting information properly"), whatever that means in practice.
The third strategy is "strengthen financial stability." But notably, the LRT upload is not in the City's hands and most certainly not in OC Transpo's, and cutting $85 million out of OC Transpo's operating needs would still result in a >$100 million requirement over the next few years to operate Stage 2. Meanwhile, advertising brings in 0.5% of the OC Transpo and even doubling advertising revenue, a stretch goal, would not result in much financial stability. The only halfway useful idea is an employer-backed pass like the old Ecopass, but that requires a stable, functional transit system - otherwise, what occurs is a DND-Carling like situation alienating employers and employees alike.
Leary plans to reveal a ten-year capital investment plan to Council this year, though the election may interfere with those plans. In response to a question from Shawn Menard, Leary said that the report will include projected buses needed for growth. This is a positive change and it is good to see OC Transpo taking a more proactive approach in planning funding needs.
The final plank is to "build a sustainable workforce." However, Leary has had a shaky relationship with labour (to say the least) and OC Transpo is continually understaffed, underlined by the LRT shutdowns just two days after the meeting.
Marty Carr asked whether OC Transpo had any backup plan for Bluesfest and Canada Day festivities. Leary's response was that there was no plan, and that double cars must be run. Additionally, Leary wants to add capacity during the busiest time of year, the immediate return to school and RTO4 in September-October.
CBA Interrogation
Video timestamp at 1:03:10.
As promised, staff brought RTG staff in for interrogation (heh) about the CBA problem. This section will be a grab-bag of issues and questions.
They confirmed that the current ramp up on Line 1 capacity is still subject to the 100,000 km limit on the CBAs, and the line required an increased level of CBA replacement. However, the goal of the bearing monitor program was to examine the evidence for an increased mileage limit, which would decrease the pressure on OC Transpo's supply lines.
They also said that the bearing manufacturer had been brought for a root cause analysis, which is still being conducted. The results of that will be disclosed to Council.
Brockington emphasized the importance of not pushing a return to full service without the supply chain to back it up, and noted that the (delayed) opening of Stage 2 East would bring even more pressure on the system. Staff responded that they were "100%" committed to only adding capacity they felt was sustainable. They seemed to indicate that the supply of bearings was sustainable for full Stage 1 service but not Stage 2 East.
Leiper asked whether it was necessary to have condition monitoring, and noted (later reaffirmed by Carr) that a CBA redesign is still years away. Staff responded that the mileage limit imposes a "huge strain" on maintenance, and that condition monitoring is necessary to relax the mileage limit. He also received confirmation that the limit was imposed by the City for safety reasons.
Leary indicated that increased peak frequency may continue after full double-car service resumes, saying that "our customers ... really enjoy three and a half or four minute [frequency]."
Menard asked whether the new CBAs would address the spalling issue and the 2021 derailment, to which staff were evasive. It seems implausible that so many issues with an unconventionally designed part (the CBAs) are unrelated, but a base analysis is required to determine that for certain.
Until next time.
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