T3 Transit says 2022 a record year for ridership so far

It's been a record year so far for public transit ridership in P.E.I., T3 Transit says.

The bus operator says the number of people using their service has now exceeded figures seen in 2019 which had previously been their best year ever for Charlottetown, Stratford and Cornwall.

T3 saw a total of 77,000 passenger fares for July in Charlottetown, an 18-year record for that month. That's compared to their previous best month in October 2019, when they saw about 74,000 passenger fares.

"October of 2019, that's back-to-school time," said owner Mike Cassidy. "That's usually when you see record numbers. So this is telling us something."

Urban and rural ridership increase

Cassidy said ridership usually hits its yearly peak in the three month stretch between September and November, when UPEI and Holland College students are regularly taking the bus in Charlottetown.

"If you have that vision ... we're metropolitan now in this Greater Charlottetown Area," Cassidy said. "There are times where we have standing-room-only on our buses. And it just shows the evolution of transit over the last 15 or 18 years." 

The growth isn't limited to that city though, with Cassidy saying Cornwall and Stratford are also seeing historical ridership numbers.

Cassidy said that if you combine all of its services in P.E.I, including rural transit, T3 saw about 90,000 passenger fares for July. 

Cassidy said ridership has been growing steadily, but several factors contributed to the explosion in growth this year, including new discounted passenger fare programs for adults, free ridership for K-12 children, high gasoline prices, the post-pandemic return to the workplace, and even just people's general worries about climate change.

A bigger fleet of buses

Six new buses with a larger capacity and more have been added to the fleet to deal with the increased demand, with another 10 expected to arrive in the fall.

"We thought COVID was going to take everything away from us," Cassidy said. 

"[In early 2020], when we did not understand the total effects of COVID, we were carrying less than 400 people a day. And now we average over 3,000 each and every day." 

Cassidy said T3 Transit could see an average of 4,000 passengers per day in the fall.