Saskatoon Transit hopes for 12M rides this year after strong 2018

"It has a lot to do with us listening to people and us putting service where people are actually going to take the bus," says the man in charge of the city's bus service.

'It has a lot to do with us listening to people,' says man in charge of bus service

Guy Quenneville · CBC News · Posted: Jan 08, 2019 3:57 PM EST | Last Updated: January 8, 2019

Jim McDonald, the director of Saskatoon Transit, said he was amazed when the early numbers for the back half of 2018 came in. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)

Saskatoon Transit had strong ridership numbers in 2018, but the man in charge of the bus service says 2019 could be even better.

Final numbers for 2018 aren't in yet, but an early estimate puts the number of rides during the first 11 months at 8.7 million. That's as many riders as all of 2017.

Jim McDonald, director of Saskatoon Transit, said the back-to-school season saw a particularly big bump of between 3,000 and 5,000 riders a day.

McDonald credited the jump partly to improved service, including new higher-frequency routes on Eighth Street, 22nd Street, Attridge Drive and Preston Avenue.

"It has a lot to do with us listening to people and us putting service where people are actually going to take the bus," he said.

The real-time app for bus users may have also helped, he added

12M riders in 2019?

Buoyed by its success in 2018, Saskatoon Transit predicted more than 12 million rides in 2019.

McDonald walked that back a little at a press conference Tuesday.

"That's an aspirational number," he said. "If the trend continues, we could see that."

He said the planned bus-rapid-transit system, along with other factors like the high-frequency routes, could help hit that goal.

The city had no final revenue figures for 2018. Saskatoon Transit's annual report for the year is not expected to be released until the spring.

McDonald said early estimates indicate revenue increased about four per cent year-over-year.

Revenue for the bus service has remained flat in recent years. (City of Saskatoon )

Still, he said "the chances are high" that the revenue brought in by the transit system in 2018 will be less than the city's budgeted revenue target.

In 2017, the shortfall was about $1 million. It was $1.8 million if you also count higher-than-expected costs such as salaries and computer maintenance agreements, according to the city's 2019 budget documents.

Different ways to measure ridership

The city measures its transit ridership in two ways. Tuesday's figures came from how many times users swiped their passes when boarding.

The other measure, the "calculated" numbers, is gleaned from fares and is the industry standard, said McDonald.

No calculated estimates for 2018 were available Tuesday, but McDonald estimated the calculated total ridership for 2018 was about 12 million to 12.5 million.

The 2017 calculated figure was 12.3 million.