2007 transit service plan

plan de transport en commun pour 2007

ACS2007-PTE-TRA-0002

Chair Cullen noted that staff had indicated they did not need to make a presentation. A reference copy of the staff PowerPoint Presentation is held on file with the City Clerk. He also noted that all members of the Committee had received copies of the Media Release regarding OC Transpo weekday bus service disruptions. He asked Committee if they had any questions related to that. A copy of the release is also on file with the City Clerk.

Appearing before Committee to answer questions on the matter were Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager, Planning, Transit and the Environment; Helen Gault, Acting Director, Transit Services; Pat Scrimgeour, Program Manager, Service Planning and Joel Koffman, Program Manager, Scheduling & Analysis. Also present at the meeting to answer questions was Ron Gillespie, Director, Fleet Services, Public Works and Services.

Councillor Wilkinson expressed concern about the short notice given for the service disruptions. She feels that, with the very cold weather, a person having to wait 20 to 30 minutes in the cold is too long. She asked what was being done to ensure that the public is aware of the disruptions, and is able to find out what is happening to their own bus routes.

Dr. Gault advised that the schedulers and planners had worked with the fleet people to ensure that trips with the least impact on service are removed. She explained that the Media Release had gone out, advising people to use the Website where there is up-to-date information about what service is cancelled. She noted that the Call Centre is fully staffed, and staff has been added. She also noted that customers are being advised to call ahead using the 560-1000 phone system to check the bus schedule.

In response to Councillor Wilkinson’s question of how this disruption had become necessary, Mr. Gillespie explained that the issue in question is safety stickers on the buses that expire at the end of the month. He advised that staff has been working on the modified inspection schedule and had hoped that the new schedule would have allowed them to get caught up by the end of this month. However, they found as they approached the last few days of the month they would not make it, without taking this action. He maintained that staff is confident that with the changes made in mid-January, they will be caught up by end February, and this would not happen again. He confirmed that if things go as planned, this situation should not arise again.

Councillor Doucet wondered why this kind of work could not be done in the warmer months. Mr. Gillespie explained that the MTO staff visits when they do, and as a result of that the change takes place at that time. Councillor Doucet suggested that the City should register a protest with the MTO to insist this not be done in January or February. Mr Gillespie understood, and noted that staff is coordinating with the MTO all the time.

The Committee then heard from the following public delegations:

Ken Holmes, using PowerPoint graphs (on file with the City Clerk) spoke on ridership and bus fleet growth.

He noted that the Public Transit System is large and complex, and that its management requires the examination of large amounts of statistics. He expressed concern that some important trends are not being identified in a manner that enables informed decisions by Committees such as this one.

He suggested that fleet growth must be in pursuit of specific objectives and the resulting performance must be measured. He noted that the main justification for increasing the bus fleet has been the assumption of an annual growth in ridership, although this growth is not being achieved. He pointed out that the Official Plan is based on growing the inter-modal split to 30%. He stated that ridership statistics have been indicating ridership shortfall. He presented and compared slides on actual ridership and bus fleet growth. He noted that the past five years have been characterized by a decline in the growth of ridership, and that the recent rate of ridership growth was not even keeping pace with the rate of population growth. He also noted that, with the exception of Budget 2004, the City has been increasing the fleet at a rate of approximately 3%.

He presented a chart on “Per Capita Growth in Public Transit Use within the Urban Transit Area (UTA.) He showed this chart indicates that, despite annually growing the fleet by 3%, there has been essentially no progress in increasing the inter-modal split in the past 5 years. He stated that the data showed no demonstrated relationship between increasing the ridership share and the large annual investment in additional buses. He pointed to 2004, where there was a relative fleet reduction of 6% but no resulting drop in per capita transit use. He also stated current practices have resulted in the stalling of any increases in inter-modal split. He maintained that, while growth to match ridership is understandable, beyond the City is not getting a return on their investment in growth buses.

He concluded his presentation by asking two questions:

1. Why, despite an average annual bus fleet growth of 3% are we not making any progress in increasing Public Transit’s share of the Inter Modal Split?

2. Why are we annually increasing the size fleet at a rate of 3% when ridership increase for the past 4 years has not even kept pace with the 1.5% population growth?

Dr. Gault, referring to the hard copies of the staff PowerPoint presentation, noted that Slide 11 shows the cumulative growth in bus fleet and transit ridership between 2000 and 2006. She noted that it showed a 12.4% increase in fleet growth and a 13.5% increase in transit ridership. She suggested the big “kink” in the whole system was the Universal Program Review and the cuts in Transit at that time. She added that in 2006, there was a 2.6% ridership increase. She explained that staff is planning for 2007 service to support a 3% ridership increase and suggested this was realistic. She also noted that all staff is looking at is the 2007 Budget, and there will be plenty of time to adjust beyond 2007 decisions which will be for buses delivered in 2008. She concluded that the fleet has not grown faster than ridership over the last 6 years.

Councillor Bloess wondered why there was such a discrepancy between the staff explanation and Mr. Holmes’ explanation. In response, Dr. Gault maintained that staff’s facts were correct, and noted that she had shared the information in the report with Mr. Holmes, and had some extensive discussions with him.

Councillor Bloess then asked Mr. Holmes to explain the discrepancy. Mr. Holmes suggested that the problem was what is actually being measured or what are the goals being set. He noted his enthusiasm about supporting the project to introduce a more complete system of performance measurement matrix. He suggested the long term direction of the public transit system, as stated in the Official Plan that in order to reach that Inter Modal Split objective of 30%, the City must increase that split at 3% per year. He maintained that the City was not achieving that. He explained that his graph was based on the data from staff that essentially says for the last 5 years the City has not progressed a fraction of a percent towards achieving that 30% Inter Modal Split, and expressed concern with that.

Dr. Gault further clarified by giving the example that if the population increased by 6% and the ridership increased by 4%; additional vehicles would still be required to carry that 4% even though modal share would be going down.

Councillor Legendre feels the real lesson, that the modal split is not rising, is that if the City keep doing the same thing it is unreasonable to expect a different result. He also feels that the City needs to do something different, meaning a better transit system, not just more buses.

Mr. Holmes agreed with Councillor Legendre and added that one of the problems in dealing with bus growth issue is that it tends to be focused simply on the annual budget cycle where the City looks in a very focused manner on the number of buses that are being requested. He stated the City is not taking the opportunity to stand back and ask if they are headed in the right direction. He maintained that if the City continues to do things the way they have done them for the last 5 years they would continue to demonstrate flat performance.

David Jeanes, Transport 2000 began by recalling that in December 2004 he and about 3 other people were invited by City staff to come to a meeting and were presented with the report that the City was about to submit to the Province on the ridership growth plan, were then asked to comment on it over the Christmas holidays. He expressed regret that he did not comment on that report as important as it was. He noted that the report was submitted stating that Transport 2000 had been consulted, and the gas tax money were received.

He suggested that the City has to have a strategy that is totally ridership growth-focused, as noted in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the light rail project, and the Federal and Provincial Funds were both contingent on ridership growth. He also suggested that is what should be the driving investments in transit and the planning of the system.

He expressed concern with the downtown situation and referred to a notice he had distributed back in 2004 when Slater Street hit the maximum number of buses it could handle and OC Transpo started to delete routes because it was at its limit (copy held on file with the City Clerk). He then referred to the report where it states that there are going to be significant frequency increases on a number of routes in the 20s and 30s and a number of Eastbound buses in the 90s series, and so on. He questioned how those buses, regardless of how many people want to travel downtown and want to use those buses, are going to fit through Slater Street. He pointed out that if it did not work in 2004, it is not going to work now.

He advised that there was supposed to have been public consultation on this matter. He referred to a study that was done in 2005 called “Strategic Network Enhancements” which is described in the report. He explained that this was the “hub and spoke” concept, which was done; consultants were hired to look at it; there was not any public consultation. He noted there really was not any engagement of the public on this, but it did introduce the concept that we just could not get that many buses through downtown and we were going to have to switch to more articulated buses and fewer direct to downtown transfer-free rides.

He also advised that as the public were never told that, when Friends of the O-Train came forward with a plan that depended on transfers, they were told “no you can’t do that” even though Council had already approved a hub and spoke which implied bus to bus transfers.

He emphasized that the public needs to be engaged in these matters and that engaging them only when the detailed route changes are worked out through the Transplan Process is not the time to do it. He reminded Committee of Mr. Chartrand’s promise a year ago that there would be extensive public consultation on the redesign of the bus system to mesh in with the Light Rail project, and urged the Committee to do that public consultation now.

He noted that when there was $8 Million in Budget cuts in 2004, OC Transpo route changes did not figure in any of the public meetings where the potential program review items were explained to communities; instead it came up at Council, and Council resolved it by approving the $8 Million cut in the final minutes of the Council meeting on a closure motion. He asked that this not happen again.

Regarding the proposed increase in transit fares, Mr. Jeanes referred to the KPMG Study, which was the last comprehensive study of OC Transpo in1998/99, recommended that fare increases not exceed the rate of inflation. He pointed out that when he spoke at the budget Directions meeting, he recommended that the Citywide tax increase be pegged at the same level as the bus fare increase. He reiterated that recommendation - that if there is a 7.5% fare increase, the City should be prepared to go with a 7.5% tax increase.

He reminded Committee that the City raised cash fares a number of years ago when there was half a million dollar pressure because the increase in cash fares had not generated the revenue expected. He implored the Committee to be reasonable and think about what the elements here are going to do, first of all to the congestion downtown which is already bad enough, and to the ridership growth which will be stifled if transit fares are increased at the proposed rate.

Catherine Gardner spoke on the transit fares and the taxi voucher pilot project. She questioned the proposed fare increase of 7.5% only in certain areas, and higher in other instances. She expressed concern about people who have to take ParaTranspo at 9:00 a.m. and require an express pass, which will be going up by 9.2% under the proposed plan. She noted that these people are with disabilities and medical conditions usually going to the hospital for dialysis at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. She feels that it was unfair to them to be charged 9.2% on top of what they are already paying.

Regarding the taxi voucher project, Ms. Gardner understood the concept but had some concerns. She noted that the program would provide approximately 31-250 additional trips, assuming the fare trip was $20, which means the person is paying $40 using the coupon book in the one trip and would still have to buy a bus pass for the rest of the month.

She also expressed concern about the use of more taxi drivers for the ParaTranspo Service. She wondered what the regulation is for the numbers of hours they could drive in a day. She is concerned that there might be drivers driving after they provide service for ParaTranspo, and questioned the number of hours sleep they get before they are back providing service for the ParaTranspo passengers.

Chair Cullen noted that Daniel Oickle was registered to speak but was not present.

The following submissions were also received, and are held on file with the City Clerk:

a. Leslie Meerburg E-mail dated 30 January 2007

b. Ken Holmes PowerPoint presentation and speaking notes dated 31 January 2007

c. David Gladstone E-mail dated 31 January 2007

Chair Cullen clarified what was before Committee, which was the staff recommendation: “That Transit Committee and Council receive this report for information and consideration as part of the 2007 Draft Operating Budget.” He noted that in the report there seems to be 5 initiatives that if Committee approves this report, it gets carried forward to Council.

1. Strategic Network Enhancements and Performance Reductions

2. 26 articulated buses, a pre-commitment for 2008

3. 7.5% fare increase

4. Additional trips for Para Transpo for a cost of $250,000

5. Taxi Voucher Project to begin in July 2007.

Dr. Gault confirmed the aforementioned staff proposals to be included in the 2007 Draft Budget.

The delegations being heard, the Committee posed questions to staff and received responses as follows.

§ The proposed buses in this report are the same buses that were approved by Council at the last meeting.

§ The routes listed in Document 1, all but 2 of the service increases are inside the UTA. The 2 are in the Rural Transit Area “A”, but they would also be covered under the transit levies that are collected in that area.

§ The minimum financial performance is measured in terms of customers lost per net dollar saved. It allows the presence of other service to be taken into account when looking into performance of the route, e.g. losing one customer by saving $5 dollars is the worst-case scenario.

Councillor Desroches noted that in the profit it states that Agriculture Canada is eventually going to move from the Experimental Farm to the old Nortel Building at Baseline and Merivale. He pointed out that The Canadian Foods Inspection Agency is also moving as a part of that relocation, and those offices are currently at Camelot Court, which is at Hunt Club and Merivale. He noted that there are a number of residents that live in Barrhaven who will be affected by that, and believes that would have some impact on the mobility of residents in the Barrhaven Area.

Councillor Desroches also pointed out that the report talks about extending the service to Riverside South where it would be every 15 minutes. He wondered why that is characterized as a strategic initiative and not a growth initiative.

Mr. Scrimegour explained that the service increases listed in the first part of the report are the ones resulting from observed growth which is occurring, and which by September will lead buses to be overcrowded beyond the set service capacity standards, whereas the ones in the second group (including the increase in Riverside South) are recommendations to make service better ahead of the growth occurring to encourage more people to use transit. He noted that in Riverside South the bus currently runs every half hour all day long, similar to Kanata and Barrhaven in the early years. He advised that the increase to every 15 minutes would give a boost to the quality of service so that more people can choose to use transit, and within a short period of time fill up that capacity and lead on to more of the types of growth that are listed in the first group.

Councillor Desroches further pointed out that Riverside South is a growing community where people are moving on a weekly basis. He suggested it would be able to, on its own, sustain an increase in service because it is growing, not because we are trying to enhance service.

Dr. Gault explained that staff tried to make somewhat of a distinction. She explained that there are some overlap, but noted that staff is certainly trying to be proactive in areas that are growing to provide service that will attract customers. Councillor Desroches stated his support for that. He stated that the entire premise of the community was that it was built around using public transportation, as it has a poor road network. He agreed that the City should be encouraging riders and trying to get cars off the roads because the road network improvements are scheduled for the years to come. He wanted the distinction to be clear because some members of Council might look at this and see it as an enhancement. He feels that if it is growth it should be categorized as growth.

Dr. Gault then suggested that the strategic network enhancements are for growth too, and should be grouped together with growth as requiring additional service.

In response to Councillor Bloess on initiatives underway to control costs for fuel, scheduling etc., Dr. Gault explained that on the scheduling of service side, with the GPS now being installed staff is monitoring on a continuous basis for improvement where resources are wasted because of additional running times. Staff has done some fancy optimization in the scheduling system on which Mr. Koffman could provide more information. She noted that OC Transpo has also made some significant reductions in the customer information side. She referred to the Website, which is incredibly well used resulting in reducing costs in the Call Centre. She maintained that staff is always striving for reductions in costs.

With respect to reducing fuel cost in having the right equipment on certain routes and idling, Dr. Gault maintained that staff certainly matches the equipment to the capacity required in peak periods. She explained that before the decision is made to change from an articulated bus to a standard one, staff looks at whether it would cost more overall to do that, which means that sometimes an articulated bus remains in service after it is truly needed but would cost more to change it.

Councillor Bloess felt that it is more of an issue of getting the articulated bus on the right route.

Dr. Gault stated that trips that need articulated buses are identified and monitored as closely as possible using the passenger counting system. She reiterated that staff always has an eye to minimizing costs and optimizing service using available technology to assist in that.

In response to Councillor Bloess’ concern on buses leaving from two transit garages passing on their way to start their routes, Mr. Koffman explained that OCTranspo does have optimized scheduling software that when buses are leaving the garage the system looks at a total picture of where the buses are coming out and where they are going to. He suggested this minimizes the cost and there should not be any buses crossing over.

Councillor Bloess then noted a discrepancy between some of the numbers in the staff presentation compared to the numbers in the report. Dr. Gault took this opportunity to correct the following errors in the numbers in the staff report:

Page 68 – Under Fare Revenues, Second Paragraph, change 49.4% to 51.7%.

Third Paragraph, change 48.3% to 49.9%.

Fourth Paragraph, change $9.9 million to $5.4 million, and $19 million to $10.4million.

She guaranteed that these were now the correct numbers and apologized for the error.

Councillor Legendre noted that the report says there are concessionary fares available to seniors and students through the reduced fare passes, “which account for approximately $14.5 million per year in lower revenues.” He suggested it would be more correct to continue that sentence and add “assuming that seniors and students would use OC Transpo as much with the higher fares.” Dr. Gault agreed, and acknowledged that this would be an incorrect assumption. She also agreed with Councillor Legendre that the statement was speculative, at best. Councillor Legendre asked that, in future, staff put that in because it does not help the case for those who are trying to foster mass transit, when it says we are having this impact on our revenues. Dr. Gault agreed.

Councillor Legendre also noted that the report talks about the Council policy of getting to 55% fare box revenue, and noted that the trend seems to be headed in the wrong direction even with that policy in place. He wondered what percentage of fare box revenue would be attained if the recommended 7.5% increase was approved. Dr Gault explained that, as indicated in the report, the percentage of fare box revenue would be at 49.9%. She noted that calculation was done assuming the 7.5% fare increase and also the service increases as well as other elements.

In response to Councillor Legendre’s request for clarification on the impact of the Committee’s decision, Dr. Gault advised that the purpose of the report was to provide Committee with the detailed and background information that supports what is in the budget at the moment.

In response to Councillor Leadman’s questions, staff provided the following clarifications:

§ Wage increases in the Collective Agreements is part of the proposed 7.5% fare and operating costs increase and noted that the largest union is at a 3% wage increase.

§ Staff has been taking a very careful look at overtime. In transit overtime is not always a bad thing, as it is sometimes less expensive to use OT hours. Dr. Gault agreed that there is “bad” overtime if time is being used for no good purpose, but maintained that staff has taken very tight approach to overtime and the cost per hour of service reflects that.

§ There was no reduction from 2005 to 2006, but there was a big reduction in 2002-2003 when the department did a really thorough analysis of overtime and the policies that were being applied for extending trips, for instance, at the end of peak periods etc. Dr. Gault advised that there are now tight policies in place before overtime is approved.

§ It is cheaper to use articulated buses where they are warranted by the demand, because there is one driver driving 1.5 times as many people around. So while each bus hour costs more than a standard bus but it does not cost 1.5 times more.

§ There have not been many operation problems with the articulated buses since December 2005. Mr. Gillespie agreed with Dr. Gault’s assessment and maintained that the 2005 December day has not repeated itself, and was not preceded by any problems with the articulated bus in terms of handling on the roads in the winter. He believes the incident was not a cause for concern for future handling or cost.

§ The bus operators are paid at the same wage rate no matter what equipment they operate.

§ The City has been examining the diesel-electric hybrid bus since 2004 when the last fleet emission reduction strategy was approved, did trials with it in 2005, and recommended it to Council last year. Staff has been directed to have an independent study of that compared to natural gas-powered buses and that has been done over the past year and will be reported back to Council in the spring. He confirmed that there would be a report coming forward to Council in the spring on buses that use less fuel.

§ Staff is moving forward purchasing buses now as opposed to after coming forward with at report recommending more fuel efficient cleaner buses because it is a timing and space issue. In order to get buses for September 2008 service, they need to be ordered within the next few months and Council may or may not approve an alternate fuel bus in April, and if waiting to that point we will not have buses for service in September 2008. Mr. Gillespie projected that the earliest the City would be moving towards a cleaner fuel source bus would be in 2009.

In response to Councillor McRae’s questions, staff provided the following clarifications:

§ Mr. Gillespie confirmed that the City had used all of the 2006 Provincial allotment for new vehicle purchases. Councillor McRae then requested that Mr. Gillespie send a report or an e-mail indicating how that was done. She feels that this was important because when talking about new vehicle purchases, people always seem to think of them in terms of municipal money when in fact that is not entirely true.

§ Mr. Gillespie explained that, if not spent, the 2007 allotment could not be carried over to future budget years, and noted that the money the City will receive in 2007 will be less than what has been received in the past for the 1/3 subsidy. Councillor McRae asked how much the City received in 2006m and since Mr. Gillespie did not have the figures with him, he agreed to send them later to the Councillor. Councillor McRae asked that in subsequent discussions about these types of issues that staff have the full picture with them so that there could be discussion about where some of this money is coming from. She suggested that it is starting to play into the bigger picture more now than it was before, because there are definitely the revenue streams coming in that can be used for some things and not others.

§ Mr. Gillespie confirmed that the City leased 7 vehicles to the City of Laval after a bridge collapsed in that municipality. He explained that this was accomplished through attrition of buses, by keeping them in service a bit longer to be able to lease them to Laval. The average age of the vehicles leased to Laval were 13-year old that were due for refurbishment, and that they will be refurbished when they come back from Laval. The reason those buses were sent was because they fit better into the fleet makeup of the City of Laval.

§ Buses are refurbished based on need and some could start as early as 7 or 8 years. However, the planned refurbishment is at 12 years.

§ Mr. Gillespie did not have the information on the average age that City buses are refurbished and reiterated that for fleet planning purposes, 12 years is the age at which refurbishment is planned.

§ The condition of the particular buses leased to Laval indicated that refurbishment could come later.

Councillor Cullen noted that under the “financial implications” section of the report the total cost for 2007 growth strategic network improvements performance reductions is $3.5 million. He wondered what the outstanding budget pressure would be if Council adopted the items proposed in the report – the 26 articulated buses are in the capital program, the 7.5% increase, the additional service for Para Transpo and the Taxi Voucher Program. Dr. Gault replied that altogether, $15 million is the budget pressure for Transit Services, but that includes the annualization of services that have already been approved - the service that was introduced in September 2006, and the Special Constable Program, for example. In response to further questions from Councillor Cullen, she confirmed that the $15 million budget pressure includes some of these expenditures and is net of the 7.5% fare increase.

Chair Cullen asked what the revenue implications would be if Council went for a 2% inflationary fare increase, and asked staff to provide this information for the Council Budget meeting. Dr. Gault agreed to do so.

Chair Cullen noted that he will be putting forward a motion to accompany the report, to have “staff prepare a budget option that would increase bus fares by an inflationary increase of 2%”.

Councillor El-Chantiry asked what percentage of the OC Transpo fleet is out of service for maintenance at any given time. Mr. Gillespie explained that the planned ratio for spares is 16%. He admitted that there were times when it is slightly higher, but mentioned that OC Transpo usually operates pretty close to that level.

In response to Councillor El-Chantiry’s question as to how this compares to other similar cities’ fleets, Mr. Gillespie replied that, based on a survey done three years ago, the City of Ottawa is just about in the middle as far as spares ratios are concerned - not the best or the worst.

Councillor El-Chantiry feels that to some 16% is a high number and wondered if the City is purchasing new vehicles because they cannot fix the ones they have. Mr. Gillespie stated that he believes the City put about 790 vehicles on the road per day out of the fleet of 950. He confirmed that over 100 buses are not available for service on any given day.

Councillor El-Chantiry indicated that he would be asking these questions because if there is a way to reduce the 16% perhaps to 8 or 9% by increasing the maintenance budget, perhaps the City could reduce purchasing new buses. Mr. Gillespie agreed that the number was worth looking at.

Chair Cullen proposed that the Committee might want to have that as an agenda item at a future meeting, just to understand the nature of having redundancy, margin of safety, and also what the repair record is in terms of maintaining City buses.

Councillor Wilkinson wondered if staff could bring forward report on alternative fuels scheduled for April forward to March. Mr. Gillespie did not believe that staff would be able to bring it forward that early. He explained that the second draft of the report has been received but it has not yet been completely analyzed. He advised that to do the analysis, repair the report for Committee and Council, the earliest to bring forward the final report would be in early April.

Councillor Wilkinson wondered if it was possible, when the City orders the new buses, to have a clause that would allow for a change in the type of engine. Chair Cullen suggested that this would have to wait for the report because of the details contained in the report. Councillor Wilkinson expressed concern that if the purchase order for the buses goes out before Council gets the report, it would not be possible to do that, but by having that clause in the specs would give some flexibility.

Chair Cullen suggested that there is a major decision to be made and it would not catch up to this order, if indeed the policy were changed. Mr. Gillespie agreed with the Chair.

At the request of Councillor Wilkinson, Dr. Gault agreed to provide information at the Council Budget meeting as to whether any part of the $20-million surplus from various parts of the organization is attributed to OC Transpo.

Councillor Wilkinson also asked staff to bring forward by budget time the cost of overtime in 2006 for the OC Transpo operations, preferably several years to see the trends. Dr. Gault agreed to bring that information forward for the budget.

Chair Cullen noted again his direction to staff to come back with a 2% fare increase.

The Committee then approved the report recommendation with the following direction to staff:

That Staff be requested to prepare a budget option that would increase bus fares by an inflationary increase of 2% as of July 1, 2007.

That Transit Committee and Council receive this report for information and consideration as part of the 2007 Draft Operating Budget.

CARRIED