Running late, drawing crowds: What new data reveals about Fredericton's bus routes

Fredericton Transit buses stuck to their posted schedule only about half the time for the month of April, according to data gathered from newly installed technology.

The city's buses arrived late about a third of the time and were too early 12.4 per cent of the time, which is where the real issue lies, according to Fredericton's transit manager.

"In transit, it's always OK to be late. You just can't be early," said Charlene Sharpe, providing an update to councillors during the city's mobility committee meeting on Thursday.

"We have 12.44 per cent that we have to work on. We have to investigate what's causing it." Sharpe did not indicate there was any information on why city buses ran either early or late almost half the time in April.

CBC News asked the City of Fredericton to clarify that, but did not receive a response before deadline.

Sharpe gave councillors a look at new data pertaining to the operation of Fredericton Transit buses, including the number of passengers who travelled on each route in April, as well as where passengers got on and off the bus most frequently, and how often buses were on-time when arriving at each designated stop.

The data comes from new devices installed on buses in the past three months, which include GPS trackers and automatic passenger counters.

They're part of a strategy to review the performance of Fredericton Transit and explore improvements, which could include the introduction of Sunday service.

Transit users have for years bemoaned the fact that buses don't run on Sundays, forcing many to take a taxi to get to and from work, a more expensive option.

Sharpe, who took on the role about a year ago, suggested Sunday service will be coming in the future, but said the technology needed to come first in order to ensure big changes were informed by the best data.

Strong demand on Saturdays

Sharpe also showed how ridership compared between weekdays and Saturdays and suggested that demand for taking the bus was even higher on Saturdays for certain routes.

For the Carlisle 10N, Prospect 11S, Brookside 12N and Prospect 13S, Saturdays on average saw more passengers than during the week.

All four of those routes either end or start at the Regent Mall, with stops on the way up and down the hill from the transit hub at King's Place Mall.

Regent Mall and other businesses in the uptown are open on Saturdays and Sundays, however the data didn't account for the reasons people took the bus and what their final destinations were.

More data will be needed

Following her presentation, Sharpe took questions from councillors, including Deputy Mayor Greg Ericson.

He noted the data presented did not include information about starting and ending points for each passenger's journey.

In response, Sharpe said Fredericton Transit does need that data and plans to get it through a public consultation process that looks into where people are going, their reasons for using the bus and why some people aren't using transit.

"So we have to work and figure out where we need to provide the service, and to get people using the service and find out why they're not using it," Sharpe said.

Coun. Bruce Grandy, chair of the mobility committee, said the data Sharpe is collecting will go into a plan she's expected to present next year "on where we need to go with transit and the changes we need to make."